Monument to Repression

Twenty years later, it still scars the mind--gray and brooding, the 103-mile-long concrete barrier known universally as the Wall. Willy Brandt was mayor of West Berlin when the East Germans sealed the border virtually overnight. Last week, in its own schizophrenic way, the city that incarnates all of the tragedy of Europe's brutal division between East and West marked the latest anniversary of the monument to repression.

In West Berlin three East German refugees held a hunger strike, and protesters built a replica of the Wall to block the office of Aeroflot, the Soviet airline. Only a few miles away, in the eastern sector, buildings were adorned with red flags as troops paraded down Karl-Marx-Allee to honor what they proudly call "the antifascist protection wall."

The Communists had reason to celebrate. In the past two decades, the Wall has helped stem the mass exodus that saw East Germany lose 3.6 million people between 1945 and the dawn of Aug. 13, 1961. Since then fewer than 200,000 have escaped. Some of the 72 who failed are remembered by small, weather-worn crosses that mark the sites along the Wall where they were killed in the attempt.

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