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198919 August 1989 · Sopronpuszta, near Sopron

Pan-European Picnic

Preserved Iron Curtain fence posts and wire at the Pan-European Picnic memorial near Sopron
Photo: Lysippos. CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Hungarian opposition groups and the Pan-European Union held a peace picnic on the Austrian border near Sopron, with permission to open a border gate for three hours. Several hundred East German holidaymakers who had heard of it ran through to Austria, and the Hungarian guards chose not to stop them. Three weeks later Hungary opened its western border, and in November the Berlin Wall fell.

Sites

  1. Site 1: Pan-European Picnic Memorial ParkBorder meadow with a memorial park marking where the gate was opened.Map ↗

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