On a related count:
Quote: Crosses Removed From Berlin Memorial
BERLIN - Workers on Tuesday began removing a field of crosses at Berlin's former Checkpoint Charlie after a privately run museum lost a court battle to keep the memorial to people killed at the East German border during the Cold War.
Workers in blue overalls began unscrewing the 1,067 crosses after covering the plaques with the victims' names and carrying them away.
"No, no, you have to listen to me," said museum director Alexandra Hildebrandt, imploring the court bailiff without effect as workers arrived at the site and began work.
Several hundred protesters jeered and whistled derisively in the rain at the former crossing point between East and West Berlin. "Remember, Don't Forget" read one sign. Several people shouted "Betrayers of the fatherland!"
Four men briefly chained themselves to crosses but unchained themselves after police spoke to them. "We unchained ourselves voluntarily because this is not supposed to escalate, but we feel a lot of anger," said Juergen Breitbarth.
The privately run museum had been given until Tuesday to raise $43 million to purchase the land where it erected the memorial in October. It didn't reach that goal.
The museum had been leasing the land from the Hamm-based BAG bank, but its agreement expired at the end of 2004, and a court ordered the memorial removed.
The memorial consisted of a rebuilt section of the Berlin Wall and heavy wooden crosses representing the museum's tally of the people killed at the East German border between 1961 and 1989. It sits on land that was formerly on the East German side of the checkpoint.
The adjacent Checkpoint Charlie museum ?- Berlin's second busiest with 700,000 visitors last year ?- is not in any jeopardy.
Named "Charlie" from the phonetic alphabet ?- checkpoints "Alpha" and "Bravo" were elsewhere in Berlin ?- the checkpoint was established by the U.S. Army in 1961 after East Germany closed its border. It was the main crossing where foreign tourists, diplomats and military personnel entered and left the Soviet sector of the divided city, with signs warning in large black letters: "You are leaving the American sector."
The land today is a high-rent downtown district, but because of the historical significance of the site the museum has ruled out erecting the memorial on cheaper land elsewhere.
That doesnt seem right. Market over history, eh?
On the other hand, if enough Berliners had cared, they would have collected the money ... I find it amazing that so little in Berlin still reminds one of the Wall. Just the touristy Checkpoint Charlie, a kitschy monument out north between Wedding and Prenzlberg ... what else?
Its not for the first time though ...
There used to be an incredibly powerful monument to the Wall's victims near the Reichstag, I saw it in '93. Individual panels from the Wall, arranged next to each other, one for each year the Wall existed, each painted black up to a certain line, according to the number of people who died trying to cross it that year, the number painted above. It was a spontaneous monument, stood in what was then an empty plot inhabited by city nomads.
By '97, it had all been bulldozered away to make way for all the brand new city development, offices, government buildings, a more official-looking park for by the Reichstag.
<frowns>
