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.
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>
