Twenty years ago Monday, in one of the most amazing international events of my lifetime, the Berlin Wall came down under the power of people yearning to breathe free. The images of that day and that days that followed are seared in my memory. In Russia, however, it has been tossed down the memory hole. A large majority of Russians don’t even know who built the damned thing.

More than half of all Russians do not know who built the Berlin Wall, one of the most enduring symbols of the Cold War, an opinion poll showed Thursday.

Ten percent of people surveyed by pollster VTsIOM thought Berlin residents built it themselves — even though its purpose was to prevent residents of communist East Germany from escaping to the West through the divided city of Berlin.

Six percent said Western powers built it and four percent though it was a “bilateral initiative” of the Soviet Union and the West.

Fifty-eight percent said they did not know who built it, with just 24 percent correctly naming the Soviet Union and its then-communist ally East Germany.

You would think they would at least wonder why Reagan asked Gorbachev to tear down the wall rather than, I don’t know, just hiring a Berlin demolition company to do it.

Here is Ronald Reagan at Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin, Germany. June 12, 1987. “Mr. Gorbachev tear down this wall.”

Seventeen months after President Reagan spoke, the wall was indeed torn down, not by Gorbachev but by the people of Berlin. It was a stunning vision and foreshadowing of the coming collapse of the totalitarian Soviet Bloc and the Soviet Union itself. Whether it is a democracy or a dictatorship, no government that denies its citizens freedom and liberty is legitimate. The fall of the Berlin Wall is a symbol of people, demonstrating their demand for human dignity, individualism and liberty standing up to governmental power.

It is no wonder, then, that Obama has refused to attend the commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall in Germany next week.

President Obama will not travel to Germany to mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9.

White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs said today that President Obama’s schedule will not allow for a visit to Germany.

“Obviously, we have a lot to work on here and we have commitments for an upcoming Asia trip,” Gibbs said.

A headline in the German news magazine Speigel said “Barack is too busy.” He isn’t too busy. He had time to lobby for and fail to get the Olympics. He had time to celebrate the birthday of his dog. He has had time for multiple rock concerts in White House. He had time for a multiple jet date night to New York. He had time for ten day vacation. He has more time for more golf in nine months than Bush played in two years. He has time for innumerable campaign events in his never ending campaign. Time has nothing to do with it.

Obama is simply not interested in a celebration of a people rising up and throwing off the yoke of governmental oppression. When Eastern Europe rose up, they looked to America for guidance and inspiration. To the people of Eastern Europe, America represented freedom from Soviet oppression. As with the protesters at Tienanmen Square, American liberty was their inspiration.

Obama just doesn’t care. It may be that he does not understand America’s greatness as a vision of freedom, liberty and individualism and, therefore, underestimates the importance of the fall of the wall. Or, alternatively, it may be that he simply isn’t comfortable celebrating an event in which people power overwhelmed governmental power and destroyed a symbol of state oppression. Knowing Obama, I am guessing it is the latter.