The Tenth World Festival of Youth and Students was of such proportions that it seems difficult to believe it really happened. “Think big,” I was told before I went to East Berlin, capital of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), “only then will you have some idea of what to expect.” Even with this advice, I was totally unprepared for what was probably the biggest festival in the world since World War II.

The opening ceremony unleashed activity that grew in momentum, scope, and size for nine days. As part of a festival by and for young people, it was much more colorful and boisterous than any Olympic opening. Delegations of young people from 119 countries marched through the city of Berlin for three hours before arriving at the festival stadium, which was already packed with nearly sixty thousand people. The event itself was so big that the delegations had been split into two groups in the morning.