April 1, 2012
-
The Berlin Wall
Ronald Reagan famously said:
Behind me stands a wall that encircles the free sectors of this city, part of a vast system of barriers that divides the entire continent of Europe. From the Baltic, south, those barriers cut across Germany in a gash of barbed wire, concrete, dog runs, and guard towers. Farther south, there may be no visible, no obvious wall. But there remain armed guards and checkpoints all the same–still a restriction on the right to travel, still an instrument to impose upon ordinary men and women the will of a totalitarian state. Yet it is here in Berlin where the wall emerges most clearly; here, cutting across your city, where the news photo and the television screen have imprinted this brutal division of a continent upon the mind of the world. Standing before the Brandenburg Gate, every man is a German, separated from his fellow men. Every man is a Berliner, forced to look upon a scar…
General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!
(Except leave part of it up because it will make a cool place for tourists to walk and take pictures, okay?)
When one hears “Berlin,” the “Berlin Wall” pops to mind. It was torn down in 1989, but they did leave part of it up as an art gallery cleverly named “The Berlin Wall East Side Gallery.” It was a commissioned work by 105 artists who painted on the east side of the wall. (The west side was already painted on by those Graffiti-loving West Berliners.) Not surprisingly, many of the paintings were destroyed by graffiti and had to be repainted, which really ticked off a lot of the famous artists who painted them in the first place.
You can see the gallery on the left side of this picture.
And you can see it even closer in the left side of this picture.
This was the first panel we came to. With all the signatures there, I thought it probably was a place provided for people to sign their names. We’ve seen similar things in museums, and the museums even provided pens!
But then, right next to this wall panel was this notice:
OH NO! At least they don’t know who we are or anything!
AAAH! No, Libby! NOOOOO!
Anyhow, let’s tour the wall, graffiti and all.
This image was all over bags and shirts and postcards and all that.
What is it? Well, on the 30th anniversary of the Deutsche Demokratische Republik (aka East Germany), the guest of honor at the party was Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. When Brezhnev finished his speech, East German President Erich Honecker opened his arms to congratulate him with a big kiss, a normal ritual for socialist comrades. But they were a bit too enthusiastic, apparently, leading to decades of mocking and this image called “The Kiss” (which was based on a photo). Yeah, I don’t much like it either.
This was cool. Depending on your angle, they looked like fun scribbles. But seen straight on, they were faces!
This was our favorite part of the wall. Rachel wanted a poster of it, but we had to settle for a mug and a postcard.
And it started drizzling…but we had more outside stuff to do!
