The Berlin Wall in Zagreb: History Doesn’t Repeat Itself, but It Rhymes

More than thirty years have passed since November 9, 1989, when thousands of Germans climbed onto the Berlin Wall, marching across checkpoints past bewildered guards. Young and old alike – wearing jeans and tracksuits – began tearing down pieces of the wall themselves. On the other side, their compatriots awaited them, throwing flowers.

Within days, the Berlin Wall was dismantled, symbolically marking the end of the Cold War. The historic moment was immortalized in scenes of dancing and embraces, accompanied by the lyrics of Scorpions, who sang of “winds of change” and “the future in the air.”

Although the wall was officially torn down, its traces can still be found throughout the city. Once a grim structure of division, it now exists as an open-air museum. In Berlin, smiling tourists pose in front of it with fingers raised in a V-sign, while above them Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev kisses East German leader Erich Honecker in one of the Cold War’s most iconic murals.

A fragment of the Berlin Wall can also be found in Zagreb. It was donated by German entrepreneur Axel Brauer on the twentieth anniversary of the wall’s fall, during the official celebration of Croatia’s Statehood Day in Berlin.

Standing three meters tall and weighing around 2.5 tons, and yet many people walk past it every day without realizing it is there. The fragment stands at the entrance of the German Embassy building on Vukovarska Street. The rear entrance is reserved for staff, while the front is marked by a narrow path beside a security booth, giving the impression that passing through might not be allowed.

But our grandmothers didn’t fight so that Germans could tell us where we can and cannot walk – so go ahead, step forward boldly. 😀

It Is Gone, but Walls Around the World Still Live On

More than thirty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, walls are still very much alive. The wall separating Palestine and Israel; the wall “against” Mexico that continues to divide opinion in the United States; barbed-wire barriers between North and South Korea; the so-called “peace walls” in (Northern) Ireland…

History does not repeat itself – it rhymes. Looking back, we like to believe that the same mistakes could never happen to us. Yet they do, precisely because they do not arrive in the same form. Even walls are no longer what they once were.

Trials come disguised, and we fail to recognize them until it is too late. And then, others look on, convinced it could never happen to them…