TRÄNENPALAST

Description

Essentials about the Tränenpalast in brief

There is probably no other place in Berlin where you can experience the “border experiences” of Berliners during the division of their city from 1961 to 1989 as up close as in the so-called Tränenpalast (Palace of Tears). The name is the colloquial term for the former exit hall at the border crossing point at Friedrichsstraße station and derives from the fact that the vast majority of GDR citizens had no freedom to travel to West Berlin and had to bid their relatives and visitors from the West a painful farewell here, usually in tears.

The building of the Tränenpalast

Built in 1962, the building housed the control and check-in desks of the GDR’s border troops and was a prestige structure. The Palace of Tears had a deliberately modern design to disguise its function as a strictly guarded border checkpoint. The infrastructure inside was also thought out in propaganda terms. The way to the East appeared bright and wide, while the corridor to the West was emphatically dark. The areas for Berliners, East and West Germans and for travelers from abroad were strictly separated. The large staircase in the glazed, bright hall that led to customs and passport control is still in its original condition. In the restored control booth – specially designed for GDR citizens – visitors can still sense the oppressive atmosphere at passport control.

The museum at the Tränenpalast

Today, fortunately, tears no longer flow in the Tränenpalast, because the building has been a museum since 2011 and documents in its permanent exhibition “GrenzErfahrungen. Everyday Life of the German Division”, it documents the human fates at the Tränenpalast. Interviews with contemporary witnesses, biographies and 570 original objects make the history during the division of Berlin vivid. Where customs checks were once carried out, today there are opened suitcases with mementos of the travelers.