Pieces hacked from the Berlin Wall, November 1989.
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Pieces of Berlin Wall
Pieces of Berlin Wall gathered by myself, November 1989.
I was fortunate to be in Berlin in November 1989. These pieces were hacked from the Wall near Potsdamer Platz.
We hired a hammer and chisel from this guy (only to realise we had bought a hammer and chisel, rather than hired them, when the bloke buggered off) and had to get behind the steel reinforcement bars in the concrete. Having chipped away at these for a while, it was then possible to pull on the exposed bars and rip out lots of nice chunks like these. Hacking away at the surface of the wall produced only chips and flakes of concrete.
I remember this happening on live tv. It is great to witness history!
Memories of a great day and history!
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Seen on your photo stream. (?)
You were there probably a month after I was. There were a few sections of wall where it had been made easier to get a decent peice or two. Since we still had about a months’ worth of backpacking left, we didn’t want to load ourselves too much, so I’ve only got a few small bits, which really is enough for me.
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Seen on your photo stream. (?)
I visited the wall last year and was interested to hear from the tour guides that people who took and sold pieces of the wall were called "woodpeckers" but yet every shop in central Berlin were openly selling boxes of small bits of wall to the tourists!!!!
This must have bumped up your luggage allowance!
These are only little lumps, palm of your hand sized.
It was a great time though, real party atmosphere and a sense of history in the making!
I’ve heard that 100 years after Waterloo, people visiting the battlefield could still buy spent bullets there, manufactured as such in Birmingham specially for the souvenir trade. I wonder if 100 years after the Wall came down, they’ll be an industry making souvenir Wall chips?
A fantastic piece(s) of history
a fabulous time i remember it well
Awesome that you were there at that time, and have these relics forever in the memory of such a dramatic event in history.