Tränenpalast (Palace of Tears)

– © Stiftung Haus der Geschichte der BRD

Leave-taking and longing, hope and despair, joy and fear — the building constructed in 1962 at Berlin’s Friedrichstraße station is tied to a broad spectrum of personal emotions and experiences. Until 1990, the departure hall built under East Germany’s SED regime was a border crossing from the GDR to West Berlin. Berliners soon dubbed this modern steel-and-glass construction, the scene of so many painful farewells, the “Palace of Tears”.

The "Palace of Tears" reopened in September by the Foundation Haus der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland with the permanant exhibition "Border experience. Everyday life in divided Germany. Original material, films and interviews with contemporary witnesses documents the effects of the border in Germany's everyday life.