Without planning to visit, we stumbled across the Berlin Wall Memorial on Bernauer Strasse.
When the Berlin Wall was erected, the Church of Reconciliation fell right on the dividing line and was incorporated into the death strip. Eventually it was demolished by the East Germans, and now a reconciliatio chapel has been built on the spot.
As the years went past and East Germany continued "improving" the wall, fewer people were killed in the act of trying to escape. That's because fewer made the attempt. Up until the last months prior to the regime's collapse, it constantly sought better ways of ensuring that its own citizens would be kept inside.
On a lighter note after viewing the memorial, it was time for an evening meal, which was taken at one of my favorite 1980s Berlin hangouts at Savignyplatz: Dicke Wirtin. There was Matjes herring, potatoes and wheat ale, and life was good.
Saturday concluded with a walk past Zoo Station, back to our lodging. It will be quite some time before I wrap my contemporary brain around the images and experiences of 1989 and a quarter-century ago.
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