Good Fences Make Good Neighbours

The famous poem, Mending Wall, by Robert Frost, the only one I vaguely remember from high school, in a convoluted way, could be an apt description of the Berlin wall. Before the wall, a quick history of divided Germany: after WW2, the Allied powers carve up Germany between themselves into four parts (the Americans, the British, the French and the Soviets), according to population. The soviets, who are effectively on one side get a large chunk of Germany, which include the whole of Berlin. The other allied powers are reluctant to give Berlin away, so they divide Berlin into 4 parts also, again in terms of population.

The Iron Curtain is a well known term, but lesser known as a wall. So, people wanting to flee East Germany, rather chose to get into West Berlin (as refugees, who were accepted with open arms) which was easier to get into. Facing mass migration, the Soviets built the wall around West Berlin, almost over night. Initially it was a simple wall, not too high (there is a picture in the Gedenkstätte Berliner Mauer where residents from opposite sides of the wall are shaking hands), but it later grew to two walls, with an effective dead zone inside with land mines, barbed wire and patrols.

The wall scarred Berlin - it is clear even now, with many parts of where the wall used to be still laying barren. Neighbourhoods were torn up, and off course there is the case of the famous escapes. What I find most interesting is how the remaining wall has been treated.

A large part of it, at the East Side Gallery, is exactly that - an open air art gallery. Much of the exhibition is distinctly anti-war, anti-wall reminding people that even after the fall of the Berlin wall, new ones are being built elsewhere: whether it is in the Middle East (the now, not too mentioned wall in the West Bank) to the fence along Southern US/Mexico border to prevent illegal immigration. These walls are probably more in the line of what Robert Brown was talking about, but neither of these are et along the lines of the Berlin wall - where one nation were effectively prisoners.

East Side Gallery: Sadly there is just so much graffiti, some works are beyond recognition.







Gedenkstätte Berliner Mauer: Includes a recreation of the dead yone, complete with patrol path, and some sort of machinery.







Church of Reconciliation was originally in the dead zone, and eventually demolished by the East Germans. This is the reconstructed church.





Checkpoint Charlie: Well known for the many incidences that took place here ...



Remembering Since the fall of the wall, Berlin is trying to keep it in memory. A brick line runs along parts of the areas where the wall used to be.