The Marienfelde Notaufnahmelager (refugee camp Marienfelde) in former West Berlin once was the first haven of safety for many refugees from East Germany and Eastern Europe. Between 1949 and 1989 (the fall of the Berlin Wall) every fifth East German citizen left for the West.
Marienfelde opened its doors on April 14, 1953. During its operation, the camp saw more than one quarter of the four million refugees pass through its doors. Some came with a suitcase, others with even less. The camp supplied expatriates with temporary housing and provisions while starting residency permit applications. Meanwhile, the East German government considered Marienfelde an American enemy installation with the express purpose of assembling and arming criminal elements to disrupt life in the Peoples’ State. Although this was communist propaganda, a recent study, commissioned by the Stiftung Berliner Mauer and conducted by the American historian, Keith R. Allen, confirms that the refugee camp Marienfelde played an important role in the West’s information gathering efforts about East Germany.
East German refugees making due at the Marienfelde Refugee Center, photo J. Elke Ertle, 2015
Last week, on the 60th anniversary of Marienfelde, German Federal President Joachim Gauck said to those in attendance, “We are proud that our government was able to successfully integrate so many people.”
An ongoing exhibition at Gedenkort Marienfelde, called Escape within Divided Germany tells the story of the thousands who rather left their homes and families than to have their freedom curtailed. The display includes photos, films, and nine hundred original documents that portray daily life in the camp: the wait, the uncertainty, and the crowdedness. Some of the rooms, their original iron bunk beds intact, can also be visited.
Today, the buildings are filled with refugees from Syria, Bosnia, Chechnya, and Afghanistan. In 2012, approximately 8,200 refugees requested asylum.
For a sneak peek at the first 20+ pages of my memoir, Walled-In: A West Berlin Girl’s Journey to Freedom, click “Download a free excerpt” on my home page and feel free to follow my blog about anything German: historic and current events, people, places and food.
Walled-In is my story of growing up in Berlin during the Cold War. Juxtaposing the events that engulfed Berlin during the Berlin Blockade, the Berlin Airlift, the Berlin Wall and Kennedy’s Berlin visit with the struggle against my equally insurmountable parental walls, Walled-In is about freedom vs. conformity, conflict vs. harmony, domination vs. submission, loyalty vs. betrayal.
