This is Education

Berlin's traumatic history has created many voids within the city. Voids being places where catastrophe has happened, leaving little to nothing in its place. Voids being places of controversy amongst natives as to whether things should be built on the voids and if so, what? How do you honor the loss but make the spaces functional? Being a city, there is little room for empty spaces/voids. Many of Berlin's voids have been built upon. You can't always be living in the past. But there are places that have been preserved, such as this section of the Berlin wall. One of many voids in the city. 

I'll give you a little bit of history, but I'm not that great with history, so bear with me and feel free to fact check me. And i'm only going to tell you the location of the wall and its extent because I was unaware before visiting. So really, to inform those who don't know and to help me better understand not only what i'm learning but also the severity behind what i'm witnessing.

After WWII, Germany was split up into 4 zones: Soviet, American, French and British. (Next two images from the internet) The Soviets decided to section off their land, which was the east, from the west. To be more specific about the territory, America, France and Britain had different sections of the west but were unified. The wall started out as barbed wire. The wall i'm standing in front of is the Berlin wall, but there was ALSO a wall separating east and west Germany. Because Berlin, marked on the map, was also divided into 4 territories. 

 This map shows strictly Berlin and yes, the entirety of west Berlin was surrounded by a wall. Why? The Soviets were communist and didn't want anyone to escape. And, of course, people in the east wanted freedom, so sought to go west. Many people died attempting, many made it.

This is a sample section of what the barbed wire turned into. The wall was not just a wall. Walls would be too easy to get over. There were two walls. An outer wall and an inner wall, differing depending on what side you were on, distanced by a good about of space. The space between the walls was called the dead zone. The picture below looks just like land between. What aren't still there are the traps and barricades set up to catch people trying to cross. There were also officers in watch towers. Here is a website that has all of the information. It is worth looking into, I had no idea the complexity and severity of the wall. The Berlin wall was more extreme than that dividing east and west Germany. If the website below is in German, you can change the language at the top of the page on the right, just put your mouse over the flag and choose english. 

http://www.berlin.de/mauer/zahlen_fakten/index.en.html

This is a memorial in what used to be a dead zone. A huge wall of faces and names of those who died.

This is a church called the Church of Resurrection. In the time the wall was up, 1961-1989, the former version of this church was within the dead zone. It was inaccessible. 

More pictures from the internet! In this first one you can see the white wall closest to us, the road going along the back side of the church was for the soldiers patrolling the dead zone, and the other wall just on the other side of that road. The white looking things in the middle, which you will see better in the next picture, were barricades for the soldiers, so they couldn't drive past them to try and get to west berlin themselves. This picture is taken from west Berlin and we are looking across to east Berlin. 

A closer look at the original Church of Resurrection and the barricades. 

Going back to the new church, this is the inside. It is a very small and intimate space. It's not quite a circle, it's more of an ellipse. 

Some pieces from the old church, which was torn down have been used, such as this alter piece you see on the wall.

The bells, instead of being on top of the church, were outside the building boxed in. I was drawn to them. 

The 25th anniversary of the wall was celebrated last year on November 9th. I bring you more images from the internet because I think what they did was so beautiful. The image below shows you these lantern looking things. Actually, they are balloons. And they are placed in accordance to where the Berlin wall was. 

 This is an ariel view of the Balloons. They were released one by one.

If you didn't know anything about this city, I don't think you would get it. The more I learn about this place, the more I feel it. The more I see it. The more it makes sense. There is so much trauma. The thing I love most about this place is that despite it's history, despite its many destructions, it rises. This city knows a thing about grief work. This city isn't afraid of change. This city celebrates its triumph over endless adversity. This city has endured, and even though it was once divided, the people endured it all together. 

So much more than a city. 

Pete & Abbey