Leaders retrace East-to-West Berlin flight

BERLIN, Nov. 9 (UPI) -- German Chancellor Angela Merkel and leaders of former Communist countries Monday retraced the steps East Germans took to rush to West Berlin 20 years ago.

Merkel, among the first East Berliners to go to West Berlin when the Berlin Wall fell, completed the symbolic walk across the Bornholmer Strasse bridge accompanied by Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of former Soviet Union, and Lech Walesa, who led the fight against Communism in Poland, as part off the 20th anniversary celebration of the collapse of the wall, The New York Times reported.

"It's perhaps as chaotic as it was in 1989," Merkel said of the crowd surrounding the European leaders. "I'm very happy that so many people turned up."

The bridge at Bornholmer Strasse, formally called the Bose bridge, was a main crossing point for Westerners to enter East Berlin under conditions imposed by the East Berlin authorities.

"(A) new generation is growing up who are embedded in Europe, for whom the world is much more open than for our generation," Merkel said.

A line of 1,000 large painted dominoes, painted by artists from around the world, were to be toppled along the wall's part as a symbol of its collapse.

"The wall is gone. Two Berlins are one," British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said in remarks prepared for delivery. "Two Germanys are one. Two Europes are one."