east side gallery

the longest remaining strip of the old berlin wall is near the centre of berlin, and is known as the east side gallery.

before i came to berlin, i really knew anything about the berlin wall (berliner mauer)- except that it split berlin in two. so here's a 90% reliable summary of what i learnt while in berlin... after world war II, the soviets occupied the officially communist state of east germany, while west germany was co-occupied by the us, uk & france. this was simple enough, however berlin was also devided into east berlin & west berlin. and so the wall was built at the beginning of the 60s to isolate west berlin from the surrounding east germany & east berlin. under this regime, people living in west germany could temporarily leave to visit family/friends in east berlin...however east berlin inhabitants were not permitted to cross over into west germany. 

the wall on the west side was bright, colourful & covered in graffiti - whilst the east side had a "death strip" leading out some 20m from the wall. this "strip" was as serious in practise as its name suggests. in 1989 the soviet state decided to let people from the eastern bloc visit the west, thus the wall was knocked down on the 9th of november 1989. the whole thing ended up with the unification of east & west germany in 1990. 

today, hardly any of the original wall is still standing. there are tiny segments dotted across the city, but otherwise the border where the wall used to stand is now marked by a double-brick paved line embedded into the roads and pathways. it was strange to think we could walk across this line so easily, whereas a mere twenty years ago there were strict rules that governed whether you could or not, and severe punishments for those who tried without permission... 

the part of the wall known as the east side gallery is the original wall as it stood from 1961-1989. it's a 1.3km long memorial (the largest open-air, public gallery in the world) with hundreds of murals by different artists - all depicting different aspects of freedom. all the paintings are on the east side of the berlin wall - hence the name east side gallery.

there's a point along the wall where you can go to get your passport stamped with the old border control stamp...i didn't have my passport on me, but i bought a print of the mural by russian artist dmitri vrubel, depicting the two kissing communist leaders leonid brezhnev and erich honecker - titled "mein gott, hilf mir diese tödliche liebe zu überleben" (my god, help me survive this deadly love). then i got the stamp on the reverse side. 

i've chucked in a few photos of the freedom murals i passed along the way. loved them!

S.

print

border control stamp

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