Bernauer Straße & Wall Memorial

Our reason for visiting this particular street is that it formed the boundary between the French and Soviet sectors after 1945 and consequently part of the Berlin Wall ran alongside the road for much of its length between 1961 and 1989.

A 1.4km stretch of the former border zone alongside the road now forms the Gedenkstätte Berliner Mauer (or Berlin Wall Memorial) which commemorates the division of the city and those who died either seeking to cross from East to West, seeking to enable escapees and also those guarding the border.

The site traces the history of the border which ultimately became the Wall, with a line of 12m metal rods marking the line of the border wall itself (to the western side of the zone), the area patrolled by guards and then the inner border wall (on the eastern side).

Markers and information panels told the story of those who lived in the houses which originally stood in what became the eastern sector but whose front doors opened out into the western sector. The Eastern authorities soon nailed the doors shut in August 1961 shortly after the border was closed and the ground floor residents were rehoused elsewhere. Later the windows in the upper floors were bricked up after many escaped by jumping from the windows into the arms of the West Berlin fire brigade or being lowered on ropes. Eventually the houses were torn down to make space for the later ‘improvements’ to the wall.

The Versöhnungskirche (Reconciliation Church), which was built and so named in the 1890s, stood just inside East Berlin right up close behind the line of the border, cut off from most of its congregation who lived in what became West Berlin. In 1985, the East Berlin authorities demolished the church to make space for a wider border zone, fed up with the unhelpful symbolism of a church focussed on reconciliation just inside the wall. In the mid-1990s a new Kapelle der Versöhnung (Chapel of Reconciliation) was constructed on the site of the old building and includes some (badly damaged) features rescued from the wreckage of the old church.

Just outside the modern structure is a copy of a sculpture entitled “Reconciliation” by a British-born sculptor Josefina de Vasconcellos, other castings of which can be found in the ruins of Coventry Cathedral, the Peace Garden in Hiroshima and the Stormont Estate near Belfast. Inside, we learnt that the words of Coventry Cathedral’s litany of reconciliation is used each day in a memorial service. We also found a Coventry Cross of Nails (although this wasn’t actually the one mentioned earlier by our hotel receptionist!)

The memorial park also features a 60m stretch where the final (1975-1980s) version of the wall and border zone has been reconstructed, with a viewing platform enabling us to see into the border zone between what we’re actually 2 walls.

Another section included a dramatic memorial with photographs of the 140 or so who died trying to escape across the wall, with just their names and ages - many were adults but 70 were children and teenagers, the youngest only 2 years old.

In other areas, archeological “windows” uncovered foundations of the previous buildings and border infrastructure.

In many places along the pavement in Bernauer Straße, small markers showed the location of each successful escape, while other markers showed the path of tunnels dug under the border zone (sometimes from West to East by those seeking to facilitate escapees) and there was one dug by the Stasi to frustrate tunnelling.

The site mostly now looks like a linear park on the site of the former border zone, with many pictures and stories about the building of the wall and those escaping or trying to so, and with the various intersecting streets that were cut in two by the route of the border. Walking through the park, with clear views through the wall marker posts, of the trams and traffic passing along the Bernauer Straße, was really fascinating and moving. I can just about recall seeing the newsreels of the wall coming down in 1989, and yet this place felt like something from another and (thankfully) long past age.もっと詳しく