The Berlin Wall Memorial

On Bernauer Strasse in the north of Berlin remains a stretch of the Berlin Wall.


This is where the Wall brutally cut the community into half, by running just in front of the local church so residents on the western side of the Wall could not walk into it.



Residential buildings in the eastern side of the Wall were demolished so that East Germany's officials on a watchtower could keep watch on the wall to shoot anyone who tried to escape from the communist part of the city.



The East Germany government destroyed the defunct church in 1985.



When the Wall was brought down, people here decided to erect a modest-looking chapel in the same place as where the church used to stand.



Initially I didn't know what this oval-shaped building is meant for. After I learned about the history of the church, I noticed the cross in front of the chapel, which almost made me cry.

The stretch of the land along Bernauer Strasse where the demolished residential buildings on the Eastern side of the Wall used to stand is mostly empty, suggesting the land title for the area hasn't been solved yet. You need to come down here to feel what the Berlin Wall was like. (The official website of the Berlin Wall Memorial on Bernauer Strasse is here.)


A billboard standing at the site of the Berlin Wall Memorial