On Nov. 17, 1989, student protesters filled the streets of Prague. It was eight days after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the same tide of freedom that had swept Berlin seemed to have come to the Czech capital. Police tried to beat back the demonstrators, hoping to tamp down the demand for freedom, but the people seemed to have grown immune to the brutality of the regime; the show of force only galvanized the resistance. The students were joined in the coming days by Czechoslovak citizens of all ages.