We had a German student staying out our house twenty years ago this week and together watched the stunning news out of Berlin, as people armed with nothing more than hammers and picks dismantled the wall between east and west. We were stunned then and, as the subsequent weeks unfolded, even more so as nation after nation in Eastern Europe declared their freedom from the totalitarianism of the Soviet machine. I was privileged to travel through east Germany shortly after the wall had fallen and the east had opened. At the time the poverty was still palpable, evident in everything from food to architecture. Things are different now, where Berlin offers all the evidence of upward mobility and freedom, as people stand in line for lattes and the landscape rises with some of the most progressive architecture in the world.As I look back on both the opening up of Eastern Europe, there are lessons to be learned: