; Whereas, during the 28 years of the Berlin Wall’s existence, more than 75,000 people were imprisoned for attempting to leave East Germany, and more than 1,000 people are estimated to have been killed trying to escape; Whereas Soviet forces brutally repressed demonstrations against repressive communist governments in Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968, and Poland in 1980; Whereas the United States Congress played a crucial role in the founding of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, independent and uncensored news outlets that broadcast behind the Iron Curtain and have been credited by former Russian President Boris Yeltsin and former Czech President Vaclav Havel with playing a significant role in the ending of the cold war; Whereas, in West Berlin in 1987, President Ronald Reagan, standing at the Brandenburg Gate, symbolically referred to both the physical wall and the division of the world and implored Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down this Wall! ; Whereas President Reagan stated, As long as this gate is closed, as long as this scar of a wall is permitted to stand, it is not the German question alone that remains open, but the question of freedom for all mankind. ; Whereas, on August 23, 1989, several million people across the Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, which were illegally annexed in 1940 by the Soviet Union, demonstrated bravery and resilience by joining hands to form a 500-kilometer long human chain to peacefully demand their independence; Whereas, at midnight on November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall symbolically fell, and East Berliners were allowed to cross into the West; Whereas, that night, East Berliners took pickaxes to this hated symbol of oppression, and during the following three days more than 2,000,000 people visited West Berlin from the East