Md. Man Holds Pieces of Berlin Wall

SEVERN, Md. - He climbed the ladder and started chipping away.

Michael Ourand was 32 years old and living in Berlin when the wall fell. Years later back home in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, a part of the wall is here with him.

When the wall fell 20 years ago, Ourand was part of the celebration.

"It was amazing. I never believed it would happen. I don't think anybody did," said Ourand.

Once the wall fell, "it changed the whole world," he says.

Like a lot of people, Ourand took small pieces of the wall.

"People were right there chipping away. Nobody said anything," said Ourand.

Then he got the idea to paint some graffiti of his own. He and a friend documented their work.

"The guards would look over and see me painting and they would ask me to throw the cans over when I was done. I told them when the cans were empty they were no good. They didn't care, they just wanted to have something that they'd never seen before," said Ourand, explaining that the guards had never seen spray paint.

His whole collection is two and a quarter tons. He built crates and flew the pieces back home to Maryland. He even brought back small metal doors from the guard towers.

"That's where the guards would stick out a gun and shoot in case they had anybody coming at them," Ourand explained.

He photographed the most powerful moments, like a little boy squeezing through a whole in the wall.

"It took a lot of people a long time to get that wall to come down. It wasn't just one person, but hundreds of people, millions of people. So hopefully millions of people can work together to solve some of the problems we have now," said Ourand.

Ourand is hoping to sell some pieces of the wall to museums. He is working on a website to help spread the word about his collection.