Twenty years after the fall of the Wall, Berlin residents take EuroparlTV through the city's streets and recount the reality of living with the Wall.

Reporter: Life alongside the Wall

EuroparlTV went to Germany 20 years   after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

We were guided by specialists   who saw Berlin divided in two.

Olaf Briese takes us   to a street that ran alongside the Wall.

Annett Gröschner looks back   at life in her neighbourhood.

My family history is strongly connected   with the division of Germany.

We suffered a great deal   because of the Berlin Wall.

From here I would wave   to my grandmother,

who was standing far away from us   on the other side, waving back to us.

There were   more and more border officials...

people didn't realise that there   would be a wall for the next 28 years.

At the beginning people thought   that it would all be over in three days.

Olaf Briese is a researcher at   the Free University in Berlin.

A philosophy graduate,   he takes a close interest in the Wall.

one of Berlin's most famous roads   because it ran alongside the Wall.

This is the spot where the first Berlin Wall   victim died on 22 August 1961.

A woman called Ida Siekmann who tried   to escape jumping from a window.

Mattresses had been spread over   the pavement, but she was fatally injured.

Annett Gröschner was born   after the Wall was built in 1964.

She was confronted with it aged 19   when she came to East Berlin.

Annett published a book   10 years ago on her neighbourhood.

Today she guides us through its streets.

People tried to escape to the West using   balloons or gliders time and time again.

So the roofs   were fitted with trip wires.

If somebody set foot on the roof,   a signal would be sent to the watchtower,

and the person   would be arrested immediately.

It was strictly forbidden   to step onto the roofs.

These downstairs windows   were all walled up.

This entire corner, the downstairs and   first floor flats were shut off.

One woman, who escaped to the West in   1958 and wanted to take her belongings,

dismantled her possessions   and transported them bit by bit in a pram.

She borrowed her neighbour's baby   and crossed the border every single day,

and so slowly transported   her personal belongings into the West.

This was very brave. Had she been   caught, she would've ended up in prison.

This is the site of an event   that made headlines around the world.

The border guard   Conrad Schumann defected

two days after construction   of the Wall had begun.

With this act,   he showed that even the guards,

who were supposed to secure the border   with weapons, rejected the Wall.

was one of between 20 to 30   underground escape tunnels

This particular tunnel lead to   number 7 Schoenholzer Strasse.

In 1962, 29 people successfully   escaped to the West through the tunnel.

Here are some remains   of the Berlin Wall.

Annett Gröschner's book,   this preserved remnant of the Wall,