The Berlin Wall Fell And Thousands Left This East German City. Now Some Are Returning

When he was 22, Octavian Ursu watched the Berlin Wall fall on television from his hometown of Bucharest, Romania. As a college student, he had taken part in the bloody democratic uprising in his own country, and he cheered along with those peacefully tearing down the symbol of a divided Europe.
"After the Bucharest uprising, I graduated, and suddenly the border was open and everything was free," he says.
He packed his bags for the new, free Germany, where he found a job as the principal trumpet player for the symphony orchestra of Goerlitz, a city in eastern Germany near the Polish and Czech borders. When he arrived, he took a look around and wondered if he had made a mistake.
"It was catastrophic," he remembers. "It looked like a city of ruins. It wasn't in good shape."
The city, filled with centuries-old buildings, had been left to rot by its past communist government. Much of the housing stock was falling apart, and as Ursu arrived, tens of thousands were on their way out, seeking better opportunities in the West. The city of 100,000 before German reunification shrank to around 50,000 people.