Tränenpalast Memorial: The Limits of Musealization

Mémorial du Tränenpalast : les limites de la muséalisation

The Tränenpalast Memorial is located in the original East German administration building for legal transit between East and West. Today, it is a place of remembrance greatly diminished by information overload.

A Visit to the Tränenpalast Memorial Is Optional.

The closure of West Berlin in August 1961 led to the brutalization of the East German police state. Resistance fighters were imprisoned by the hundreds, and people living in buildings adjoining the Berlin Wall were evicted from their homes. Communication routes were obstructed, and contact between people on either side of the Wall remained forbidden until the winter of 1961/62. The city was disfigured, and the separation of families was a trauma that was to mark the collective memory for almost 30 years.

In 1962, West Berlin mayor Willy Brandt's outstretched hand policy led to a degree of détente. The GDR allowed families to reunite, but only West Germans could travel to the other side of the wall; the reverse was impossible, at least not until the two states normalized some ten years later. A transit building was built near the Friedrichstrasse station, in East Berlin. It was here that West Berliners who had come to visit their loved ones bid them farewell before leaving again. It's a place of heartbreak: Tränenpalast literally means Palace of Tears.

From the 1970s onwards, the station became a place of expulsion for would-be emigrants, i.e. those who had made an official request to leave the country for good. The GDR rarely advertised this, but the Tränenpalast acquired a special aura of defiance and resistance. After reunification, the building became a popular jazz club until 2006. In 2011, the memorial is inaugurated in the presence of Chancellor Angela Merkel, who lived through the division and personally suffered the separation of the families.

Une perspective essentiellement allemande au Mémorial du Tränenpalast à Berlin.

A Dated and Poorly Designed Exhibition

The Tränenpalast Memorial is located in the building of the former border crossing. Its exterior has not been altered by the post-Reunification renovation work, and reveals an astonishing ceramic-clad architecture. The main element remains glass, which symbolizes a desire for transparency, but which, in the days of the GDR, was merely an illusion. Inside, on the contrary, this strange combination produces a feeling of unease and confinement.

The exhibition area is limited to the former great hall. In this single room, various modules of unequal size are presented according to a thematic or chronological approach. All the major dates are covered in no particular order: 1949 and the founding of the two German states, 1953 and the GDR uprisings, 1961 and the closure of West Berlin, 1989 and the fall of the Berlin Wall. In between events, more specific stations provide information on the border system and, incidentally, on the Tränenpalast, in particular a superb model of how passenger transit works. A few objects and period signs are scattered around, along with a number of audio and video stations, which are also very noisy.

The tour rotates around the old check-in counters, the centerpieces of the memorial, most of which are unfortunately closed to the public. However, the modules are too numerous and overloaded with no real development. Their subjects are far too broad for such a small space, and the result is a feeling of flying over issues without being able to delve any deeper. This lack of depth is partly compensated for by the excellent audio guide. Nevertheless, it is a sign that the exhibition cannot stand on its own.

Les guichets d'enregistrement au Mémorial du Tränenpalast à Berlin.

The Evils of Museumization

The Tränenpalast Memorial suffers from a problem of definition. Although the building is listed as a historic monument and considered a place of remembrance, the museography is primarily that of a museum, not a memorial. One of the reasons for this is that the Tränenpalast is part of the House of History of the Federal Republic of Germany. This foundation has created a remarkable documentation center in Bonn and the excellent Museum of Daily Life in the GDR in Berlin. It is therefore less a work of memory than of political history.

In seeking to musealize the Tränenpalast, the administrators have annihilated its emotional significance in favor of maximizing information. The result is highly debatable, and raises questions about the motivations of certain historians and educationalists in search of completeness and projects.

An alternative would have been to consider the Tränenpalast for what it is above all: a place of memory. The memory of the crying and separation of families. The memory of fears and bureaucratic coldness. The memory of hope, exile and renewal. To be transmitted, these memories could be based on two things that are already available: biographical elements and places of origin. Strictly academic information can be dealt with in a documentation center. In this respect, the Tränenpalast can draw inspiration from the examples of the Wall Memorial, the Stasi Prison Memorial and the German Army Memorial.