To commemorate the 20th anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Ohio State Center for Slavic and East European Studies will create a 6 x 20 foot “replica” of the wall on Monday, November 9 on the Wexner Plaza between Page Hall and the Wexner Center for the Arts. Construction of the wall will begin at 7 a.m. and once completed, passers-by can paint graffiti on the west side of the wall. Additional events scheduled on campus include a lecture by Dr. Alan Beyerchen on “Ground Zero in World III: The Rise and Fall of the Berlin Wall.” The lecture will be held in the Psychology Building, Room 010 from 6-7 p.m. The Wexner Center for the Arts will present a Berlin Wall double feature, Mission to Moscow and The Last Bolshevik, starting at 7 p.m. Tickets cost $5 for students and $7 for the general public.
 
The Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall, a 15-foot concrete wall with barbed wire and watch guards, sat as a political barrier between East and West Germany. This wall stretched for 96 miles around the city of Berlin. It was built by the East German government on August 13, 1961 to block access into West Germany. From 1960 to 1989, East Germans attempted and failed to escape to their freedom in West Germany through the wall. The desolate life in East Germany was controlled by Communists until the collapse of the Soviet Union.