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It was 20 years ago when the east side and the west side of Germany was separated by a wall. On Monday, Germans will celebrate the day that the wall which divided them was torn down and finally united the country into one.

On that fateful night that it was finally torn down, the people were dancing atop the wall, celebrating a big victory. Their years of separation and anxiety have finally melted into the unbelievable reality of freedom and future without border guards, secret police, informers and rigid communist control.

The event will be celebrated with concerts from playing classical music from Beethoven to rock songs like Bon Jovi. A memorial service will also be given in honor of the 136 people who were killed trying to cross over from 1961 to 1989. There will be candle lightings and placing of 1,000 towering plastic foam dominoes which will placed along the wall route and tipped over.

They will recall the day when East Germans came in droves – hundreds, and then thousands, then hundreds of thousands crossed over the following days. West Berlin stores stayed open late and banks gave out 100 Deutschemarks in “welcome,” which was worth about $50 then, to East German visitors.

Families were reunited, bars gave out free drinks, and some even chiseled off chunks of the wall to keep as souvenirs. The jubilation then lasted until November 12, where more than 3 million of East Germany’s 16.6 million people had visited, nearly a third of them to West Berlin, and the rest though the gates opening up along the rest of the fenced, mined frontier that cut their country in two.

The wall was built by the communist at the height of the Cold War and stood for 28 years. Now it is mostly gone, except for some parts that still stand at an outdoor art gallery or as part of an open-air museum. In its route through the city you’ll see streets, shopping centers and apartment houses. The only reminder of the wall is a series of inlaid bricks that trace its path.