This is a "memorial" of a different sort. It commemorates the Berlin Wall, of course, located in a long strip where the wall once was. There's one section (seen immediately below) which shows the wall as it was during the Cold War--as you can see it wasn't just a wall, but two walls with guard towers and a so-called "death strip" in between. Other than this, there are museum-like buildings that have exhibits, photos, and videos, and then outdoors there are "archaelogical" sections where there are signs showing you the remnants of various buildings that were torn down in order to construct the wall. The reason that the memorial is located in this precise spot, is that this was a dramatic location on the wall. It used to be a built-up and populated street (Bernauer Straße), with apartment buildings and the "Church of the Reconciliation." When the Communists were first blocking it off, they just plugged the gaps between the buildings and bricked in the lower windows of the apartments. But people jumped out of upper windows and made tunnels and came up with all sorts of ways to escape. So eventually the houses were destroyed and the death strip was built. And the Church was just stuck in the middle of no man's land, and became an embarrassing symbol for the Communists. Eventually they dynamited it.
I think this is cool. They put photos on the sides of the buildings that show what happened in that precise location years before.
This shows the location of "Tunnel 57" through which 57 people escaped.
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