UVa students commemorate the 20th Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall

Freedom Without Walls at UVa asks you to participate in a Declamation Contest to express that freedom and solidarity are essential virtues today as much as they were in 1989.

Update (10/1): Special thanks to the student speakers at the Declamation Contest: Bin Xie (Winner – Non-native speaker), Kevin Corrigan, Stella Mach, Ole Hengelbrock, Anna Gainey (Winner – Native Speaker), and Whitney Hunter.

Watch this speech from Bin Xie.
Watch this speech from Ole Hengelbrock.

A particularly moving moment in German-American history is certainly John F. Kennedy’s “I am a Berliner speech” from June 26, 1963. It resonated with Germans in East and West alike and made an impact all over the free world. (For more details and a online stream of the speech click here.)

UPDATE (9/23): Student oratory contest featured in an article in the Cavalier Daily.

The contest will be held on Wednesday, September 30, 2009 at 4.30 pm at the Kaleidoscope Room in Newcomb. It will feature a short introduction to the topic at hand by a distinguished guest speaker. Furthermore UVa a capella will provide musical entertainment.

The contestants can respond in either English or German to the following prompt:

“Put yourself in the shoes of a United States President (for example John F. Kennedy or Barack Obama) and deliver a speech on the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.”

German and English entries will be presented in two separate competitions. Speeches should be 5 -7 minutes long.

Please send submissions by September 18, 2009 to Gerrit Roessler (gkr5f) or Brett Martz (bcm3z).

Team Members: Lila Jividen, Christine Henry and Nicole Poltash