Reading the Writings on the Walls -- Remembering East Berlin

In this article in the special issue of Transformations of the Past in Contemporary German Politics & Culture, the author explores the distinct approach to memory in East Germany to assert that East Germans situate their memory of the GDR in a continuity of time rather than rupture, but the transformation of a post reuinification New Berlin is contrasted in memory of the Old Berlin. The debates about the transformation of the lived East Berlin realities into memory are addressed in discussion of several German literary works. Irina Liebermanns Stille Mitt von Berlin autobiographical narrative distinguishes the East Berlin loss of memory in the historical remnants of bombed out Berlin to the post September 11 New Yorkers continuous connection to place. The author concludes by questioning the significance of identity to buildings in the relationship of materiality to cultural memory with Eike Geisels Im Scheunenviertel. J. Harwell