West Berlin Exhibition brings back memories to both locals and tourists

“West:Berlin. An Island in Search of its Mainland” (West:Berlin.

“West:Berlin. An Island in Search of its Mainland” (West:Berlin. Eine Insel auf der Suche nach Festland) evocates 25 years after the vanishing of the political oddity West Berlin, the western half of the German capital which stood under protection of US, British, and French allies from 1945 until 1990. No exhibition has been organized since the end of the wall and the reunification of Germany about the extraordinary Western part of Berlin, which during almost 45 years represented the western lifestyle and all of its values, totally enclaved within the communist-driven German Democratic Republic. The name of island often given to West Berlin explains the political and geographical situation of the western half of the city.

The exhibition was opened at the end of last year and will still be hosted in Ephraim Palais in the historical Nicolai Viertel of the capital until the end of June. Over 500 exhibits and media productions take viewers on an emotional “journey through time,” with unexpected associations and encounters, rediscoveries and surprises through the four mains sections: politics, economics, society, and culture. “Berlin City Museum is not making any claims to encyclopedic comprehensiveness with this exhibition. Our intention is rather to open up the wide range of issues that arise out of an investigation of the historical phenomenon that is West Berlin. And we want to tell people about the possibilities and impossibilities that defined the lives of West Berliners for over 40 years,” explains Franziska Nentwig, General Director of the Berlin City Museum.

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The panorama of West Berlin goes from life behind the Berlin Wall to political relations, from the role of the allies to economic mismanagement and cronyism, from avant-garde art to student protests and alternative lifestyles, from immigrants’ presence to transportation issues. Posters, pictures – many provided by former West Berliners – audio and video archives give again the spectrum of a city full of life with a feeling for freedom deeply ingrained inside its inhabitants.

Nostalgia is popular in the German capital. “Ostalgie,” which could be translated in English to “Eastalgia,” is often evocated to remember Berlin past as the capital city of former East Germany. And now, the West:Berlin exhibition is no exception. According to Martin Schäfer, Head of Social Media for Berlin City Museum, the exhibition’s organizer, the exhibition has been so far a great success: “As of the end of April, we already registered about 45,000 visitors since it opened, and we now expect to have more than 50,000 visitors to the Ephraim-Palais until the end of the exhibition at the end of June. I believe that visitors are grateful for the trip we offer along memory lane as many feel emotional in front of the objects that we expose. Many recognize back their ‘West Berlin’ again.”

The exhibition, however, does not only attract former West Berliners. “We also see big interests from former East Berlin people – who also experienced the aftermath of the Cold War – as well as from foreign visitors. The fact that the exhibition is in both English and German helped to bring exposure to a foreign audience.

There is a need to rush to (re)discover West Berlin as it used to be as the exhibition will close at the end of June. And according to Martin Schäfer, this will not be turned into a permanent exhibition in contrary to some rumors. “It is mostly due to capacity reasons as we do not have space and resources for another location run under the City Museum,” he added.

Now it would be the turn of East Berlin to be exposed. In the visitors’ book of the exhibition, the demand is repeated and pressing. There is no precise date for a future East Berlin exhibition, but the museum seems now to seriously be considering such an initiative. “Ostalgie versus Westalgie!”

The West:Berlin exhibition is opened every day except Monday from 10 am to 6 pm. On Wednesday, it opens from 12 noon to 8 pm. It is free for visitors up to age 18.

More information may be found at the west.berlin/exhibition website.

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Linda Hohnholz

Editor in chief for eTurboNews based in the eTN HQ.

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