The Berlin Wall Memorial

The Berlin Wall Memorial on Bernauer Strasse is the central memorial to the division of Berlin and the single most important place to visit if you want to understand what the Wall really was. Most of the Wall was torn down within months of November 1989, and many visitors are surprised by how little survives. Here, the Berlin Wall Foundation has preserved and marked a long section of the former border strip as an open-air exhibition running about 1.4 kilometres along the street, with its core area of about 500 metres between Gartenstrasse and Strelitzer Strasse. Bernauer Strasse was a uniquely tragic place: the houses on one side were in the East, while the pavement in front of them belonged to the West, so in August 1961 residents jumped from their windows into the arms of West Berlin firefighters before the doors and then the windows were bricked up and the houses demolished. Along the site, rusted steel rods trace the line of the Wall where it no longer stands, plaques in the ground mark escape tunnels dug under the strip, information stations tell the stories of escapes and deaths, and the Window of Remembrance holds the photographs of people killed at the Wall. At the centre is a reconstructed piece of the full border installation, with the inner wall, the death strip, the patrol road and a watchtower, which you can look down on from the viewing tower of the Documentation Center across the street. The Chapel of Reconciliation stands on the site of a church that found itself in the death strip and was blown up in 1985. The Visitor Center, by Nordbahnhof station, has a film introduction, and the Documentation Center houses an indoor exhibition on the years 1961 to 1989. All exhibitions are free; guided tours and workshops are paid.

How to visit: start at the Visitor Center at Bernauer Strasse 119, near Nordbahnhof S-Bahn station, for the introductory films and a map, then walk east along the open-air exhibition. Climb the viewing tower of the Documentation Center at Bernauer Strasse 111 to look down on the preserved border strip, which explains the whole system in one glance: the hinterland wall, the signal fence, the floodlights, the raked sand, the patrol road and the outer wall facing the West. Continue past the Chapel of Reconciliation and the Window of Remembrance, and as far as the Mauerpark if you have time. The information stations are in German and English, and the foundation offers an app and guided tours, including overview tours in English that can be booked.

Hours and timing: the open-air exhibition is open daily from 8am to 10pm, while the Visitor Center and Documentation Center open Tuesday to Sunday from 10am to 6pm, with the last ascent of the viewing tower at 5:45pm, and are closed on Mondays and on 24, 25 and 31 December. On 9 November, the anniversary of the fall of the Wall, special hours and commemorations take place, and 13 August, the anniversary of its construction, is marked here every year. Weekday mornings are quietest; school groups arrive later in the morning.

Why it matters: Checkpoint Charlie is better known, but it has become a busy tourist street with little to show, while the East Side Gallery tells the story through art. Bernauer Strasse is where you see the scale and the cruelty of the system and hear the voices of the people it divided. It is sobering but never sensational, and it is suitable for older children with some preparation. Pair it with the DDR Museum for daily life in the East, or with the East Side Gallery for the joyful side of the story, and finish with a coffee in Prenzlauer Berg or Mitte, both a short walk away. Getting there is easy: S-Bahn to Nordbahnhof, the U8 to Bernauer Strasse, or tram M10.