Upamiętnianie Muru Berlińskiego: Trywializacja versus autentyczność
The Commemoration of the Berlin Wall: Trivialisation versus Authenticity

Summary/Abstract: This article deals with the issue of The Berlin Wall commemoration, which is related to the tension between German official (state) and unofficial (private) memory. The central demand of the govern-ment, responsible for the official commemoration is the notion that the Wall should be placed in the framework of “coming to terms with the past” related to the GDR period. Whereas the unofficial commemoration resorts to the use of marketing strategies and trivialization in order to make the Wall attractive to tourists. This duality of commemoration in Germany is the reason why no satisfactory framework of interpretation of that segment of Germany history has been worked out since 1989. The issue will be exemplified by two Memorial Sites in Berlin: the Checkpoint Charlie and the Bernauer Strasse.

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