Palace of Tears

You are now in front of the Tränenpalast, known as the Palace of Tears in English, a highly symbolic site of Germany’s division. After the construction of the Berlin Wall, Friedrichstrasse railway station ended up entirely within the Soviet sector. However, a few train lines did remain accessible from the West, passing through East Berlin, before continuing on to the rest of the GDR. For some, this station was a painful, impassable barrier, and for others, it meant meticulous and humiliating inspections. The Tränenpalast was built immediately after the Wall in order to manage this new volume of traffic and monitor the travelers who were permitted to pass through. In an effort to impress the West, it was deliberately designed to be as modern as possible, and somewhat conceal its true purpose. The customs checkpoint was quickly dubbed the Palace of Tears, because of the many tears shed during the final farewells of separated families, who had been lucky enough to reunite there. In 1990, after the fall of the Wall, the Palace of Tears was declared a historical monument, and the following year, it was converted into a club and a theater. Performances were successfully held there until 2006. In 2011, the House for the History of the Federal Republic of Germany opened a free museum in the building, featuring a permanent exhibition on the everyday lives of Germanswho were quite literally pushed up against the wall. Feel free to step inside to learn more about the key dates in its history and to understand what it truly meant for thousands of people over the course of 28 years. This is a biographical exhibition, so you will hear moving testimonies and experience the oppressive atmosphere that accompanied identity checks.