1JZGauQ

More documents

Recommendations

Info

3: THE MATERIALITY OF THE BERLIN WALL and members of the allied forces were allowed to cross the border here (Klausmeier and Schmidt 2004:163). In October 1961 the crossing was the site of a near confrontation between the Americans and the Soviets and tanks were facing each other across the border (Taylor 2006: 412). Today the site is a hot spot for Berlin Wall tourism. Although the wall and the crossing infrastructure was removed here in 1990 a reconstruction of the 1960s US Army control hut has been located just inside what used to be the American Zone complete with an American flag and bags of sand stacked to create protection from enemy fire. A US army sign is also located near the control hut stating “You are entering the American sector. Carrying weapons off duty forbidden. Obey traffic rules” in English, Russian, French and German. There is also a stall offering visa stamps. Two large photos have also been placed on either side of the former border, a picture of an American soldier looking into former East Berlin and an East German border guard looking back from the other side. The line of the border, as in most part of the inner city, is marked along the ground with a cobbled line. Located here is also the Museum Haus am Checkpoint Charlie, something I will return to later in this chapter. I’m standing outside Friedrichstraße Station. People are rushing past, all with a purpose and a place to be. During the division of Berlin, Friedrichstraße station acted as a railway crossing between East and West. A complex system of corridors, steps and platforms kept separated to make sure people did not sneak across, a labyrinth of control. A structure that was closely connected to the Berlin Wall during the Cold War period, at least for those who used to cross it was the Tränenpalast, or Palace of Tears, a large hall at the Friedrichstraße Station. This was one of the main crossings between East and West Berlin both for Germans and people from other nationalities. The name refers to the many tearful goodbyes that were said inside the hall before those who were crossing over to West Berlin went through passport control here. There were several different windows for passport control, one for visitors, one for ‘Inhabitants of capitalist states’, one for inhabitants of West Berlin and a separate window for diplomats. After going through the controls in the hall travellers were routed through a series of corridors underneath the station to get to the train to West Berlin (Klausmeier and Schmidt 2004:146). The trains that ran in East Berlin were made completely separate from the train system in West Berlin. The train and underground system, which before 1961 had been one for the whole city of Berlin, was severed and separated in two parts so successfully that by the fall of the wall in 1989 they functioned as 61
AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE IRON CURTAIN two completely different systems. By keeping the different areas separate and positioning passport control posts along the way it was almost impossible to get on a train to West Berlin without permission. The station has now been completely refurbished and looks like any other station with no visible traces of its former segregated layout. The Palace of Tears was used as a concert hall until 2006 and has since 2011 housed the exhibition ‘Border Experiences – Everyday life in divided Germany’ by the Stiftung Haus der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. This exhibition aims to provide “a vivid insight into life in the shadow of division and the border” (Stiftung Haus der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland website 2012). When I interview Nina in London, where she now lives, some of her clearest memories of the wall relates to the Friedrichstraße Station and the Palace of Tears. This was the place where she used to help people escape over from East to West Berlin. She was a student in Berlin during in the early 1960s and through the university she got involved in helping people cross the border. “I was given some passports that I needed to smuggle over to East Berlin and then give them to those who were trying to escape”, she tells me. Often they met in a flat where she handed the passports over and explained how the crossing worked. The passports were of different nationalities such as West German, English and Swedish. “I remember one time I turned up and the person looked nothing like the passport photo that was meant to be used. The girl in the photo had blond hair while the East German girl who was going to use the passport had really dark hair. We had little time so we had to improvise and covered her hair in flour to make it lighter. Amazingly it worked.” She laughs at the story now but remember it being frightening at the time. The last time she went over to help someone across she soon discovered that she was being followed. Zigzagging through the streets around Friedrichstraße Station she managed to lose the man following her in order to get through the Friedrichstraße passport control and onto the train to West Berlin as soon as possible without being caught. That was her last passport trip over to East Berlin (Nina 2008, pers. comm.). Today the station looks just like any other station. Apart from the Palace of Tears, which is actually located just next to the main station building, there are no traces of the division. I try to figure out what platforms may have belonged to what trains, east- or westbound and what corridors that were out of bounds from those in the East but it is difficult. Not even the passage between the station building and the Palace of Tears seems to remain. As I 62
Page 1 and 2:
An Archaeology of the Iron Curtain
Page 4 and 5:
An Archaeology of the Iron Curtain
Page 8 and 9:
Contents Acknowledgements 11 CHAPTE
Page 10:
The end of a journey 212 Sammanfatt
Page 13 and 14: AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE IRON CURTAIN
Page 16 and 17: CHAPTER 1 Introduction Standing on
Page 18 and 19: 1: INTRODUCTION carried out of the
Page 20 and 21: 1: INTRODUCTION they may be… It i
Page 22 and 23: 1: INTRODUCTION where the observer
Page 24 and 25: 1: INTRODUCTION former Iron Curtain
Page 26 and 27: 1: INTRODUCTION criticism from othe
Page 28 and 29: 1: INTRODUCTION itioned somewhere i
Page 30 and 31: 1: INTRODUCTION World War II dividi
Page 32 and 33: CHAPTER 2 A physical metaphor Concr
Page 34 and 35: 2: A PHYSICAL METAPHOR established
Page 36 and 37: 2: A PHYSICAL METAPHOR The changing
Page 38 and 39: 2: A PHYSICAL METAPHOR the events t
Page 40 and 41: 2: A PHYSICAL METAPHOR As time has
Page 42 and 43: 2: A PHYSICAL METAPHOR highly influ
Page 44: 2: A PHYSICAL METAPHOR popular idea
Page 61: AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE IRON CURTAIN
Page 73 and 74: Figure 16: Postcard of the newly op
Page 85 and 86: 402 Kojsko Hum 402 THE OSIM
Page 109 and 110: Figure 50: Map demonstrating the bo
Page 113 and 114:
AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE IRON CURTAIN
Page 115 and 116:
Page 117 and 118:
Page 119 and 120:
Page 121 and 122:
Page 123 and 124:
Page 125 and 126:
Page 128 and 129:
CHAPTER 5 Case Study 2 The Czech/Au
Page 130 and 131:
5: CASE STUDY 2: THE CZECH/AUSTRIAN
Page 132 and 133:
Figure 55: Bunker near the crossing
Page 134 and 135:
Figure 59: Military map from 1980 o
Page 136 and 137:
Page 138 and 139:
Page 140 and 141:
Page 142 and 143:
Page 144 and 145:
Page 146 and 147:
Page 148 and 149:
Page 150 and 151:
Page 152 and 153:
Page 154 and 155:
Page 156 and 157:
Page 158 and 159:
Page 160 and 161:
Figure 77-78: Painting inside the f
Page 162 and 163:
Page 164 and 165:
Page 166 and 167:
Page 168 and 169:
Page 170 and 171:
Page 172 and 173:
Page 174 and 175:
Page 176 and 177:
Page 178 and 179:
Page 180 and 181:
Page 182 and 183:
Page 184 and 185:
Page 186 and 187:
Page 188 and 189:
CHAPTER 6 An archaeology of the Iro
Page 190 and 191:
6: AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE IRON CURTA
Page 192 and 193:
Page 194 and 195:
Page 196 and 197:
Page 198 and 199:
Page 200 and 201:
Page 202 and 203:
Page 204 and 205:
Figure 102: Fence and Watch Tower a
Page 206 and 207:
Page 208 and 209:
Page 210 and 211:
Page 212 and 213:
Page 214 and 215:
Page 216 and 217:
Sammanfattning (Summary in Swedish)
Page 218 and 219:
SAMMANFATTNING En fysisk metafor I
Page 220 and 221:
SAMMANFATTNING komst och kunskapsf
Page 222 and 223:
SAMMANFATTNING Fältstudier av läm
Page 224 and 225:
SAMMANFATTNING som försöker ta si
Page 226:
SAMMANFATTNING mets dilemma”. Han
Page 229 and 230:
Page 231 and 232:
Page 233 and 234:
Page 235 and 236:
Page 237 and 238:
Page 239 and 240:
Page 242 and 243:
Södertörn Doctoral Dissertations
Page 244 and 245:
33. Sofie Bedford, Islamic activism
Page 246 and 247:
67. Anne Kaun, Civic Experiences an
Page 248 and 249:
Stockholm Studies in Archaeology Se
Page 250 and 251:
29. LINDGREN, Christina. 2004. Män
Page 252:
The Iron Curtain was seen as the di
show all

1JZGauQ

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?