The picture here is of the Gedenkstaette Bernauer Strasse (see previous post)...a little piece of history that is visited by mobs of German schoolchildren as part of their history lessons. The small museum there has clips of radio interviews from the days and months immediately following the violent division of Berlin. The observation tower shows how the street changed from month to month as pieces of buildings along the south side of the street (the East) were removed bit by bit. People who had lived there were forced to resettle in other parts of the city more distant from the wall. After all, the capital of the GDR was trying to keep from bleeding out all of its population (brain drain like no other: nearly 2000 people each DAY were leaving Berlin in 1961).
One more photo here is from the sector of East Berlin that looked down on Checkpoint Charlie. The building carries a message painted in three languages, just like the signs that stood at all the checkpoints: Attention. You are leaving the --- sector. However, they've modified it slightly to nod with irony in the direction of the capitalist victory over communism: You are entering the non-profit sector. Kapitalist, beware?
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