20 Years After Fall of Berlin Wall

President John F. Kennedy called it "an offense not only against history but an offense against humanity," he said.

"We were not starving, we were not poor," Furchert said. "We had the basics."

But the basic necessities were pretty much where it stopped. In fact, for his first 17 years, that simple life was the only one he knew. Still, Furchert says he yearned for more.

"How did I know that I was longing for something more? I cannot describe it," Furchert said. "You can just feel injustice, I did not want to just go along and conform."

He grew restless behind the wall and soon after, Furchert joined a growing non-violent movement known as the Peaceful Revolution. Days before the Berlin Wall collapsed hundreds of thousands of ordinary people just like Furchert were taking to the streets.

"People were moving out of the churches and into the streets with burning candles in their hands and songs of praise and freedom on their lips," Furchert remembers. "We were approaching the soldiers that were lined up in the streets armed and waiting for orders to shoot."

But they didn't shoot-- and 20 years ago, on November 9, 1989-- Furchert was among the first to step out from behind barrier's rubble -- out of imprisonment once and for all, and into freedom.