This is a fragment of reinforced concrete taken from the Berlin Wall, which physically divided the city for 28 years from 1961 to 1989.

The wall, which was 166 km long and cut through 192 streets, came to symbolise the ideological divisions between East and West during the period of the Cold War. East Germans used Berlin as an escape route to West Germany to a life they felt would be freer and more prosperous.

By June 1961 about 550 people a day were leaving for the West. The communist government in East Germany viewed the flow of citizens from East Germany into West Berlin as a ‘national disaster’ and during late summer 1961, began strengthening the border in the city. In the early hours of 13 August, a wire barricade was erected around West Berlin. Over the next few months work began to replace the provisional barriers with a solid concrete wall, dividing friends, families and neighbours.

The Berlin Wall was heavily guarded and fortified with watchtowers (each with a searchlight), trenches, barbed wire and eventually ‘the death strip’ a no-mans land between an inner and outer wall consisting of a mined strip of gravel under constant surveillance. Over 150 people were killed and many more were seriously wounded trying to cross the wall during its 28 year existence.

With the collapse of communism in 1989 the Berlin Wall was demolished and the two German republics were formally reunited on 3 October 1990.