Piece of Berlin Wall Erected at University

In celebration of the 30th anniversary of the sister city relationship between Los Angeles and Berlin, a section of the fallen Berlin Wall was erected Thursday at Loyola Marymount University in Westchester.

The donation resulted from the efforts of Dirk Verheyen, a political scientist at the university, while on sabbatical in Germany last year, to bring back a panel of the wall. Because of the long-standing relationship Los Angeles has had with Berlin, city officials there agreed to give a 9-by-4-foot section of the wall to Los Angeles.

The remnant of the wall, which divided East and West Berlin for 28 years, has been placed on a platform in a grove of trees between the university’s Foley Building and student center. The concrete chunk was previously displayed at a park in Berlin in a pile of rubble that symbolized the fall of communism.

“This historical monument symbolizes the freedom that came when the wall came down,” said university spokesman Norm Schneider. “It symbolizes the freedom of religious practice and what a restrictive government and environment can do to people. And that freedom is part of the Jesuit tradition.”

The 26-mile wall stood as a stark barrier between communist-controlled East Berlin and the free West until it was torn down beginning in 1989. The wall stood about 13 feet high and was dotted with 300 sentry towers where guards manning machine guns watched for refugees trying to cross over to the West.