Loss

Well over 100,000 East German citizens tried to escape across the inner-German border and across the Berlin Wall between 1961 and 1989, often with fatal consequences. The youngest victim was just six months old, the oldest 81. Nearly three decades after the end of Germany’s post-war division, the death toll across the inner-German border has been con-firmed at 327, 80 % of these victims were younger than 35. People were shot and killed by GDR border guards, drowned, suffered fatal accidents, or killed themselves when they were caught.At the Berlin Wall, at least 140 people were killedbetween 1961 and 1989: escapees, border guards,accidental victims, even a Soviet soldier. Thesefigures do not include the people who died of grief and despair over the Wall’s impact on their personallives.The main focal points of this art piece arepeople laying flowers and floral arrangements for Ida Siekmann, the death of Peter Fechtner, and the Berlin Wall Memorial showing pictures of the victims. On 22 August 1961, Ida Siekmann (58) became the Wall’s first casualty: she died jumping out of an upper floor at Bernauer Strasse 48. Her death caused widespread outrage and disgust. The death of Peter Fechtner is also shown in the picture. On 17 August 1962, eighteen-year-old Peter Fechtner became the 27th known Wall victim. Fechtner was shot and killed while trying to cross over to West Berlin in plain view of hundreds of witnesses. He fell back into the death strip on the East German side where he remained in view of West German onlookers. Despite his screams, Fechtner received no medical assistance from the East German side and could notbe tended to by those on the Western side. West Ber-lin police threw him bandages, which he could not reach, and he bled to death after approximately one hour.Part of the former border strip is now a place of remembrance that gives visitors a moving insight into the division of Berlin. But especially on sunny days, with hundreds of people strolling through this large open-air exhibition, it is hard to imagine and feel the consternation, distress and despair people must have felt when the wall was being built and throughout the years that it divided the city and the country.