Wall Is Fast-Fading Memory in Booming Berlin
November 10, 1998 - 0:0
BERLIN Nine years ago Monday, thousands of cheering East Germans poured over that hated Cold War symbol which had divided their city for almost three decades, but today even Berliners have a job remembering just where the wall actually stood. Are we in East Berlin or West Berlin here? Can you show me where the wall was? are questions frequently put by visitors bewildered to find no trace of the impregnable rampart against fascism erected by East Germany in August 1961. The wall which crossed Berlin like an ugly scar, inspiring fear in all who lived in its shadow, is now a fading memory a ghost of a past which nine years of reunification and an unprecedented construction boom, have consigned to oblivion.
A guide who takes tourists along the site of the wall, pointed to the lefthand side of the Bouchestrasse. It ran along the buildings on that side then it turned into the Harzer Strasse, he said, brandishing photographs as proof of his statement. In the euphoria of reunification, Berliners rushed to dismantle the 155 kilometers (97 miles) of the wall which circled the western part of the city.
Only a few segments have been left standing and even these are crumbling under the onslaught of tourists eager to take home a souvenir of this monument to a bygone era. Tourists and gradually even the Berliners themselves find it hard to pinpoint the exact location of the wall. So with the aid of historians, Eberhard Elfert now organizes guided tours each weekend along the path where the wall once stood.
He has chosen for his tour, a district where the wall snaked between buildings and where neighbors in the same street found themselves cut off from friends by a 3.5 meter-high (11 foot) concrete barricade topped by razor-wire, with watchtowers and military patrols. In many places, contrary to what people imagine, the wall ran along the river Spree, the canals and railway lines.
Here it cut a neighborhood in two. The people had to learn to live permanently in its shadow, Elfert said. At the corner of Elsenstrasse and Heidelberger Strasse where the tour begins, there is a gaping gash among the surrounding buildings. At that spot, the East German border guards had simply bulldozed a few homes to create a no-man's land, he said.
Further on, windows which were considered too close to the wall, were bricked up. Here and there, shabby buildings, patches of waste ground and ancient Made in GDR lamp-posts, betray on which side of the invisible wall the visitors find themselves. In most cases however nothing remains today to indicate whether one is in the former West or East Berlin. The run-down facades of the eastern sector have been repaired and repainted, the roads resurfaced and traffic restored.
After the wall was built, the East German secret police kept an eye on people living along the wall for fear they would slip over to the west, said Elfert. All those who were deemed to be not politically reliable were forced to move out and were replaced by reliable' people, he said. But the wall did not stop people trying to flee East Berlin. Some attempts ended tragically, others were successful.
In 1983, two electricians working on a roof, escaped by stretching a rope across the Bouchestrasse. They waited all night on the roof and crossed over at about 05:00 a.m. using a pulley, said Elfert, standing in front of a superbly renovated building. In certain streets, tunnels were burrowed between two houses under the wall. In the Heidelberger Strasse, Heinz Jercha, who helped fugitives to cross to the west, was shot and wounded in March 1962. He managed to reach the west but died of his injuries.
According to the August 13 Association which specializes in the history of the Berlin Wall, at least 255 East Germans were killed trying to cross the wall. (AFP)
A guide who takes tourists along the site of the wall, pointed to the lefthand side of the Bouchestrasse. It ran along the buildings on that side then it turned into the Harzer Strasse, he said, brandishing photographs as proof of his statement. In the euphoria of reunification, Berliners rushed to dismantle the 155 kilometers (97 miles) of the wall which circled the western part of the city.
Only a few segments have been left standing and even these are crumbling under the onslaught of tourists eager to take home a souvenir of this monument to a bygone era. Tourists and gradually even the Berliners themselves find it hard to pinpoint the exact location of the wall. So with the aid of historians, Eberhard Elfert now organizes guided tours each weekend along the path where the wall once stood.
He has chosen for his tour, a district where the wall snaked between buildings and where neighbors in the same street found themselves cut off from friends by a 3.5 meter-high (11 foot) concrete barricade topped by razor-wire, with watchtowers and military patrols. In many places, contrary to what people imagine, the wall ran along the river Spree, the canals and railway lines.
Here it cut a neighborhood in two. The people had to learn to live permanently in its shadow, Elfert said. At the corner of Elsenstrasse and Heidelberger Strasse where the tour begins, there is a gaping gash among the surrounding buildings. At that spot, the East German border guards had simply bulldozed a few homes to create a no-man's land, he said.
Further on, windows which were considered too close to the wall, were bricked up. Here and there, shabby buildings, patches of waste ground and ancient Made in GDR lamp-posts, betray on which side of the invisible wall the visitors find themselves. In most cases however nothing remains today to indicate whether one is in the former West or East Berlin. The run-down facades of the eastern sector have been repaired and repainted, the roads resurfaced and traffic restored.
After the wall was built, the East German secret police kept an eye on people living along the wall for fear they would slip over to the west, said Elfert. All those who were deemed to be not politically reliable were forced to move out and were replaced by reliable' people, he said. But the wall did not stop people trying to flee East Berlin. Some attempts ended tragically, others were successful.
In 1983, two electricians working on a roof, escaped by stretching a rope across the Bouchestrasse. They waited all night on the roof and crossed over at about 05:00 a.m. using a pulley, said Elfert, standing in front of a superbly renovated building. In certain streets, tunnels were burrowed between two houses under the wall. In the Heidelberger Strasse, Heinz Jercha, who helped fugitives to cross to the west, was shot and wounded in March 1962. He managed to reach the west but died of his injuries.
According to the August 13 Association which specializes in the history of the Berlin Wall, at least 255 East Germans were killed trying to cross the wall. (AFP)