Workers rebuild Berlin Wall

2004-10-05 21:44

Berlin - Workers began rebuilding on Tuesday a large section of the Berlin Wall near Checkpoint Charlie, the crossing point to former East Berlin, the head of the museum there said.

"Two slabs were erected on Tuesday," on a vacant lot, Alexandra Hildebrandt, said the director of the Wall Museum at Checkpoint Charlie.

She said the remaining sections of the 200-metre-long part of the Wall, to be used as a memorial, would be put in place by the end of the month.

It will stand about one metre back from the path of the original Berlin Wall, which was brought down in November 1989, so as not to interfere with a line of paving stones marking the spot where it once stood.

The museum will finance the project and artists from around the world are likely to be asked to decorate the large concrete blocks.

"We want people to remember the Wall, and the significance of Checkpoint Charlie because this border post was a symbol of separation throughout the world," Hildebrandt said.

According to new research by a prominent victims' group, 1 065 people were killed trying to flee former East Germany between the end of World War II in 1945 when the communists claimed control and the fall of the Wall in 1989.

German reunification took place on October 3, 1990.

- AFP