Painting the Berlin Wall

Elmar Prost clearly has a lot of fun giving visitors tours through his Wall parkas he goes through a gap between two colourfully painted Wall pieces. Up until 25 years ago, these divided East and West Berlin from each other. There were no gaps and no possibility of getting through them. Now they are surrounded by weeds on an industrial wasteland in Berlin-Teltow.

Elmar Prost is the CEO of a company that has operated cement works in the capital. An employee came up with the idea of putting together wall pieces that had become useless after the fall into giant bulk material warehouses. A fantastic idea - the army was happy to be rid of them. After the end of the company's activities, Prost decided to give painters the opportunity to paint the original pieces a quarter century after the fall (mauerteilebemalen.de). For six months, you can then paint a piece of the Wall on the company premises for500 Euros and then take it with you. "Sometimes families paint together and put their piece in their garden," Prost says. Museums and schools all around the world also show interest in the historical relics. Four colourful Wall pieces have been given in donation to in the city of Uijeongbu in divided Korea since March 2014. Close to the North Korea border, they silently remind visitors that a peaceful reunification of countries is possible.