The Iron Curtain Trail's Landscapes of Memory, Meaning, and Recovery

The Iron Curtain Trail’s Landscapes ofMemory, Meaning, and Recovery

byDavid G. Havlick

Photographs by the Author

Introduction

At a commencement speech in 1946,Winston Churchill warned his audience atWestminster College in Fulton, Missouri,that, “From Stettin in the Baltic to Triestein the Adriatic, an iron curtain has des-cended across the [European] Continent”(Churchill 1946). The “curtain” Churchillreferred to at the time was not yet a physi-cal barrier, but for much of the Cold Warthe Iron Curtain signified Soviet and east-ern European isolation from the West. TheIron Curtain’s impermeability soonbecame more than just symbol or meta-phor; by the early 1960s it also effectivelydescribed a material presence that reachednearly 7000 kilometers north to souththrough central Europe. Until 1989, fences,watchtowers, concertina wire, minefields,walls, and border guards maintained thislinear feature as a militarized death stripextending the length of Europe. Today,these same borderlands form the backboneof Europe’s most ambitious and extensiveset of ecological preserves, including hun-dreds of protected areas and a series ofnational parks and biosphere reserves thatcollectively are considered, “The GreenBelt of Europe” (e.g. Terry et al. 2006;Hammer 2009; Schw€agerl 2011).

In the latter half of the 20th Century,the Iron Curtain was likely the most iconicand disruptive feature of the central Euro-pean landscape (Steiner 2006, ix). Consid-ering its prominence during more thanfour decades of the Cold War, the IronCurtain’s rapid transformation fromfeared, highly controlled barrier to openand widely appreciated green space repre-sents a profound transformation. Commu-nities along these borderlands now treatthis strip as an open-space amenity, a liv-ing memorial to a divided Europe, and asan important site of ecological revitaliza-tion, cultural meaning, local and European

pride (Cramer 2010; 2012). Against theparadox of these transformations fromdeath strip to green belt, the Iron Curtainnow presents an important trans-Europeangeography that blurs the boundaries notjust of political ideologies, east and west,but also those of nature and culture. TheIron Curtain remains both a symbolic pres-ence and an actual set of places, but theway its meanings and physical presencehave changed in the span of just over twodecades can offer insights into processes ofdemilitarization, land use change, and eco-logical restoration that apply well beyondthese Cold War borderlands.

Bicycling along the Iron Curtain Trail

In September 2013, with support fromthe American Geographic Society’s McCollFamily Fellowship (and a grant from myhome institution, the University of Colo-rado Colorado Springs), I set out for cen-tral Europe to experience a portion of theIron Curtain borderlands and see formyself how these transformations areoccurring. My research seeks to under-stand how people and communities proxi-mate to the borderlands are negotiatingthe Iron Curtain’s profound transitions,and to compare how demilitarization andecological recovery are taking place alongthe new European green belt versus for-mer military sites in the U.S. that haveseen somewhat analogous conversionsfrom militarized landscapes to newemphases on wildlife conservation andhabitat protection. In particular, I am inter-ested in how formerly militarized sites arecommemorated in this European contextand to examine approaches to restorationof these complex landscapes in the U.S.versus Europe.

My research along the Iron Curtainalso came with a small twist: in order toexperience the borderlands as directly as

possible, and to create opportunities tovisit cultural and ecological features alongthe way, I decided to travel solo by bicy-cle. In all, during nine days of cycling Iwould cover 1,200 kilometers from Bratis-lava, Slovakia, to Point Alpha (Rasdorf),Germany. This is just a small stretch of theentire Iron Curtain Trail (ICT). Formallyrecognized by the European Union (EU) in2005, the ICT is now one of Europe’s lon-gest designated bicycle routes, runningsome 6,800 kilometers from the Barents Seato the Black Sea (Figure 1). The trail is nomere recreational path. With the ICT, theEU aspires to provide a means of “experi-encing history,” a model for sustainabletourism, and a legacy that fosters abroader sense of European identity (Cra-mer n/d; Iron Curtain Trail n/d; see alsoHammer 2009).

I rolled out of Bratislava in a light driz-zle, leaving behind the largest city I wouldencounter during my entire ride. After tenkilometers I met my first ICT marker andturned onto a network of bike paths andfarm roads following the Morava (orMarch) River that delineates the Slovakia-Austria border. It wasn’t long before someof the layered histories of the borderlandsstarted to emerge. As I pedaled throughforested floodplains and wetlands flittingwith waterfowl, it was easy to marvel atthe simple beauty of the landscape (it alsohelped that the drizzle had broken intoscattered sunshine). But time and again Iwas confronted with the realization thatthese lands were not simply a product ofnature at work. Rounding a bend at theconfluence of the Morava and Danube Riv-ers, a medieval tower and the ramparts ofDev�ın Castle loomed above me – a remnantand reminder that some of these borderswere marked and militarized long beforethe days of the Iron Curtain. The morerecent history was also evident, though,with a large rectangular monument at the

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foot of Dev�ın Castle commemorating thehundreds of lives lost trying to cross fromeast to west during the Cold War (Fig-ure 2).

Commemorating and InterpretingBorderlands

Over the course of my trip, I encoun-tered a number of monuments markingthe Iron Curtain and recalling the violenceit imposed upon people and place. Theseranged from simple crosses commemorat-

ing an individual killed while patrollingthe border or attempting to flee, to eclecticsculpture gardens and open air museums.The monuments invariably pulled me outof the bucolic fields or woods, mountains,and streams I was pedaling through torecall that these landscapes were the prod-uct not just of natural processes but a vari-ety of social practices enacted overprevious decades and centuries.

In this respect, a journey along theIron Curtain Trail can prove to be ratherdisorienting as there is no single story, no

unifying narrative that pulls the disparatelayers of this region easily into view.Instead, the traveler is pressed to considerthe borderlands as complex socioecologicallandscapes. Even the borders themselvespresent a problem. I was drawn to centralEurope specifically to study the transitionsalong the Iron Curtain borderlands, butfor much of my trip the borders I bicycledalong had histories that reached nearer tothe end of the Iron Age than the onset ofthe Iron Curtain. This was made abun-dantly clear not only from the loomingstone bulwarks of Castle Dev�ın and othersI passed along the way, but even moreacutely by barriers of language. On theAustrian and German sides of the border Imanaged to communicate reasonably well(I studied German for six years, includinga term abroad in college), but in Slovakiaand the Czech Republic I was quicklyreduced to pantomime. Despite my clearunderstanding of the profound disloca-tions and violence caused by forty years ofCold War separation between countrieseast and west, time and again the realiza-tion came that this was but one relativelybrief phase of among many centuries ofboundary-making. With nearly all physicaltraces of the Iron Curtain now dismantled,overgrown, or lost from view, it may bedangerously easy to let the importance ofthis barrier and the impacts it wroughtfade away as well.

There is also the issue of heterogene-ity. The borderlands are not – and reallynever were – the same from section to sec-tion. This diversity showed itself most dra-matically in the contrast between theinner-German border that formerlydivided Germany into East and West, andthe international borders farther south thatare now open but remain in place. Formany Germans, the Cold War division ofthe Iron Curtain represented a sharp dis-ruption in cultural identity and establishednew forms of separation that do not com-pare exactly to those of the German-Czechand Austrian-Czech/Slovak borderlands.Though Germans had long-establishedsub-national identities as Saxons, Bavari-ans, Thuringians, or Hessians, prior to theCold War they had generally maintainedcommon linguistic and cultural identities.

Even language and national affilia-tions are blurred in places along the IronCurtain, however, as evidenced by thecase of Sudetenland. Prior to 1945, thewestern reaches of today’s Czech Republicwere predominantly settled by MoravianGermans. Following World War II, theGerman population was expelled from

Figure 1. Iron Curtain Trail map (Cartography: Based on an original map by Michael Cramer,modified by the author, and used by permission).

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Czechoslovakia en masse, reducing whathad been a 90% majority of Germanspeakers region-wide to less than 5%(Bi�c�ık and �St�ep�anek 1994; Bi�c�ık et al.2001). In just three years, from 1945 to1948, approximately 2.8 Moravian Ger-mans were evicted and relocated acrossthe border east to west.

The expulsion of the German-speakingpopulation also resulted in a sudden evacu-ation of property claims along these borderregions that later facilitated the establish-ment of federally protected areas. Withinthree years of the spring 1945 armistice,approximately three million hectares “sud-denly became virtually uninhabited”; mostof this land subsequently became andremains state property (Bi�c�ık et al. 2001).Though today the border in this region isopen, with the Czech Republic and Ger-many both members in the EuropeanUnion, residues of this mass expulsion

remain. Designated initially in 1963 andexpanded in 1991, �Sumava National Parkand Preserve covers 167,000 hectares of thisarea that, in 1991, contained less than 2,500permanent residents (�Sumava NationalPark and Preserve 1999). Other traces ofthe historically strained Czech-Germanrelationship are a bit more subtle: in daysof cycling through the Czech borderlands, Idid not meet a single person able (or per-haps willing) to speak to me in German.Whenever I asked, “Sprechen Sie Deutschoder Englisch?” the reply always cameback, even if haltingly, “English is better.”

The depopulation of Czech Sudeten-land was made starker still as the fortifica-tion of the Iron Curtain proceeded in the1950s. In order to enhance border security,the so-called Zone A of the Czech sidebetween the actual border and the borderfence was completely depopulated withvirtually no human activity permitted for a

width ranging from 200 meters to five kilo-meters (Bi�c�ık and �St�ep�anek 1994). In theslightly less-restrictive Zone B, extendinginward from the border fence for up to anadditional five kilometers, local settlementswere cleared but select activities such astimber or mushroom harvesting wereallowed only with a special permit (Bi�c�ıkand �St�ep�anek 1994). As of the 1991 census,population numbers in these Czech borderzones had only rebounded to 61% of the1930 census levels (the last census con-ducted prior to World War II). To this day,many of the communities that once thrivedin this area remain virtually abandoned.The land cover of the Czech borderlandshas also reflected these population declines,with increases in forest cover and openfields, and decreases in arable land thathave only accelerated during the post-1990period, as state-sponsored subsidies evapo-rated (Kupkova et al. 2013) (Figure 3).

Figure 2. Dev�ın, Slovakia monument.

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As a Curtain Falls, Nature Rises

This combination of depopulation,changes in land ownership, and land coverchange partially explains the flourishing ofprotected areas and nature reserves alongthe former Iron Curtain. Similar processesare now evident in militarized andrestricted spaces, past and present, in anumber of places around the world. Thedemilitarized zone (DMZ) of the KoreanPeninsula, which persists as one of the mosthighly militarized borders on the planet,has attracted attention for years due to itsunintended role as a de facto wildlife sanc-tuary (Higuchi et al. 1996; Kim 1997; Turner2005; Thomas 2010; see also Weisman 2007).Montebello Islands, off the coast of WesternAustralia, were the site of British nucleartests in the 1950s and are nowmanaged as amarine park by the state Department ofParks and Wildlife. The Department’s web-site unabashedly touts the park as an“Explosive attraction.” (Montebello Islandsn/d). The United Nations’ enforced bufferzone dividing Cyprus – the so-called GreenLine – has also inspired visions of a futurezone of ecological and psychological heal-ing (e.g. Grichting 2011).

In the United States, since 1988, nearlytwo dozen former military sites have beenredesignated as national wildlife refuges.These once-restricted areas have becomecharacterized not only by the impacts of

military tests and training, but also by theuses that military control excluded. In theabsence of residential or commercial devel-opment, extractive industry, recreationaldevelopments, or intensive agriculture, eco-logical processes came to the fore in manyparts of these former installations (seeHavlick 2007; 2011). Some of the changesare also due to problems of site contamina-tion that limit redevelopment. This oftenresults in socio-ecological landscapes whereprocesses of human development andecological change are inextricably mixed.

The greenward shift occurring alongthe Iron Curtain borderlands may beunique compared to these other cases, how-ever, both for the rapidity with which ithas occurred and for the degree of coordi-nation and agreement that exists in movingthe vision forward. Just one month afterthe fall of the Berlin Wall – and before theopening of most crossings along theextended inner German border – the Ger-man group BUND (Bund f€ur Umwelt undNaturschutz Deutschland, also known asFriends of the Earth Germany) – organizeda meeting with some 400 conservationistsfrom East and West Germany to discussthe prospects of creating a green belt alongthe inner German borderlands. The gather-ing concluded by passing a resolutionasking for conservation efforts along theIron Curtain to become a national priority(Geidezis and Kreuz 2012). The project then

moved with impressive celerity and fromboth sides of the border. In 1990, at its finalmeeting, East Germany’s council of minis-ters set aside the Thuringian Rhone as abiosphere reserve, a move that was laterincluded in the Unification Treaty betweenthe two German states. By mid-April 1991,the United Nations granted nearly 185,000hectares of these borderlands formal statusas a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve (Our WayInto the Future n/d). This post-unificationdesignation “was not only Germany’s firstnationwide conservation project but also aliving memorial to recent German history”(Geidezis and Kreutz 2012, p. 15). Thereare now 150 nature conservation areasalong the German Green Belt, as well as125 additional conservation areas that serveas “ribs” spreading from the backboneof the former borderlands (Geidezis andKreutz 2012).

The vision of a trans-European GreenBelt has moved steadily forward fromthese early measures. A 2001 ecologicalsurvey of the inner German borderlandsfound 109 different habitat types, includ-ing all known German habitats except forthe alpine. Perhaps even more dramaticconsidering the highly fragmented Euro-pean landscape, more than 85% of theseareas were considered “intact” (Geidezisand Kreutz 2012, p. 16). A number of rarespecies are now found along the GreenBelt, including brown bear, wolf, lynx,wolverine, imperial eagles, Dalmatian Peli-cans, Eurasian eagle owls, and a variety ofsongbirds (Geidezis and Kreutz 2012).

In 2003, the first international confer-ence on the European Green Belt was heldin Bonn, Germany. The meeting the fol-lowing year was held at the Ferto-Hansagtrans-boundary park in Hungary andattracted representatives from 17 Europeancountries (Geidezis and Kreutz 2012). Theconferences are now annual events held inlocations across the 24-country region ded-icated to the Green Belt project (EuropeanGreenbelt 2013). The June 2012 meetingsaw the creation of a formal structure forthe maintenance and protection of theGreenbelt, including contacts for eachcountry, the designation of regional coor-dinators, and measures to coordinateNGOs such as the International Union forConservation of Nature (IUCN), whichwill serve as a coordinating consultant(Schwaderer 2013). In all, the Greenbeltincludes 39 national parks adjacent to ordirectly on the borderlands, and more than3,200 “nature protected areas” within 25kilometers of the former Iron Curtain(Geidezis and Kreutz 2012, p. 18).

Figure 3. Abandoned church at Doln�ı Dvo�ri�st�e, Czech Republic. The church tower was used as alookout by Czech border guards during the Cold War.

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Considering the prevalance of pro-tected areas, a resurgent environment, andthe sparse human populations, politicalborders often seemed invisible as I bicy-cled. Along the inner German border Isoon lost track of which side of the formerIron Curtain I was on as the sinuous bor-der turned in all directions. Even in theinternational borderlands of Germany-Czech Republic, Austria-Czech Republic,and Austria-Slovakia, had it not been forsignage and linguistic differences it wouldhave been easy to cross borders withoutrealizing it. Ironically, this is one of theconcerns held by some backers of the vari-ous Green Belt and Iron Curtain Trail ini-tiatives: that the cultural landscapes andhistory of the Iron Curtain will fade fromview as nature surges to the fore.

We need only turn again briefly to theexample of former U.S. military bases con-verted to wildlife refuges to see that this isnot a trivial concern. User surveys I haveconducted at several of these sites suggestthat visitors quickly normalize the refugesin their new form, with a correspondingdeemphasis on the militarized past orother prior histories (e.g. Havlick et al.forthcoming). While this may indicate aninspiring recovery of formerly dangerousmilitary sites, such reconceptions can alsoeradicate important social meaning andevents that occurred at these places. Partic-ularly at sites of imposed violence, severecontamination, weapons development,proving grounds, or nuclear facilities, theimpacts, risks, and sacrifices warrant astronger regard for commemoration.

Unifying Europe and Avoiding HistoricalErasure

Along the Iron Curtain borderlands,the desire to recognize ecological andcultural attributes often seems more expli-cit and determined than in cases I havestudied in the U.S. As Geidezis and Kreutz(2012, p. 20) point out, “Above itsuncountable value for nature conservation,the European Green Belt is also a Euro-pean cultural heritage of invaluable asset.It is both a commemorative landscape anda living monument for the overcoming ofthe Iron Curtain and the Cold War just asit is a symbol for the overcoming of theseparation of Europe.” Similarly, indescribing his vision for a green beltthrough Germany’s Thuringian border-lands, Th€one emphasizes that the “GreenBelt must also communicate to futuregenerations how a dividing line through acountry has become a unique space that is

able to connect people and nature” (2012,p. 28).

The commitment to maintaining asense of the Iron Curtain both in its horrorand inhumanity as well as its promise andecological benefit is perhaps the EuropeanGreen Belt effort’s most significant feature.As the current president of the GermanLeague for Nature and Environment(Deutscher Naturschutzring) noted back in2004, the Iron Curtain’s only true “win-ner” was nature, but by working to imple-ment a common set of conservation goalsEuropeans today might turn “a oncedividing structure into an ecological bond”(Vogtmann 2004, p. 5). Ultimately, thismay prove to be a way to overcome per-sistent historical divisions and achieve anew sense of European unity.

This very much fits the vision for theIron Curtain Trail described by its princi-pal sponsor in the EU Parliament. MichaelCramer is a member of Parliament andfounder of the Berlin Wall Trail that com-memorates the former route of the barrierseparating East and West Berlin. In theofficial brochure describing the Iron Cur-tain Trail and its purpose, Cramer suggeststhe Iron Curtain is, “no longer a dividingline but a symbol of a shared, pan-Euro-pean experience in a reunified Europe”(Cramer n/d). I was fortunate enough tobe able to meet with Mr. Cramer in Berlinat the end of my Iron Curtain travels. Cra-mer embraces the ecological flourishingthat is taking place along the central Euro-pean borderlands, an appreciation he hascultivated by personally bicycling all ofthe inner German border and writing threedetailed cycling guides of the entire route(Cramer 2007; 2010; 2012). But he is alsovery clear about the importance of consid-ering the changes along the Iron Curtainin an integrated way: “We can’t only lookto nature, that would be crazy. Culture,politics, nature, and history all need to beconsidered together” (Cramer 2013).

This multifaceted approach to com-memoration that values cultural landscapesin full partnership with ecological condi-tions is surely one important lesson weought to gather from the changes occurringalong the Iron Curtain borderlands. Frommy research of military-to-wildlife transi-tions in the U.S., and in ecological restora-tion efforts more generally, we often find aset of objectives that orient more exclusivelyto prior – and ideally, pristine – ecologicalconditions. This approach can effectivelyrestore endangered species, degraded eco-logical communities, or important functionto impaired ecosystems, but the effort to

erase human-caused damage and degrada-tion can also lead to the erasure of impor-tant human histories and cultural value.For many of us, to lose sight of the humandimensions of the Iron Curtain’s historywould represent a devastating loss of mem-ory and meaning.

Considering the degree of humansuffering, oppression, displacement, anddeath that occurred as a result of the forti-fied separation of Europe throughout theCold War, it can be rather disturbing toread accounts that seem only to value anecological aesthetic along the borderlands.As one 2008 article in the International Jour-nal of Wilderness lamented, “Unfortunately,the spectacular Sumava-Bavarian Foresttransboundary protected area is now undersome threat from increased recreational usegiven that the Schengen Treaty, whichcame into effect December 21, 2007, allowstourists to cross the border between thetwo countries freely” (Martin et al. 2008, p.38). Conceding that increased use andaccess may lead to ecological harm that wemight wish to regulate or avoid, this nar-row framing still seems rather perversewith its wistful implication: remember thegood old days when the border was secure?

As Cramer’s more inclusive vision sug-gests, there ought to be ways to protect thenatural features and ecosystems of the IronCurtain borderlands while also valuing,commemorating, and preserving theregion’s culture, politics, and history. Infact, as I bicycled along the resurgent forestsand fields of the formerly militarized andrestricted borderlands, I regularly encoun-tered examples of this type of approach. Attimes it was tempting to forget what hadhappened along this winding route of theIron Curtain, but there were also manyvivid reminders of how the social and thenatural can be effectively linked. I willbriefly highlight three of these cases.

�C�ı�zov, Czech Republic

A quiet road heading west fromZnojmo, Czech Republic, traces the bound-ary of National Park Podyji, as it passesthrough 20 kilometers of open fields, for-ests and the Czech villages of Ma�sovice,Lukov, and Horn�ı B�re�ckov to the tiny burgof �C�ı�zov (population 216). Signs andkiosks along the road highlight dozens ofhiking trails coursing through this post-Cold War park, which when combinedwith National Park Thayatal on the Aus-trian side of the nearby border, covers7,950 hectares. On a sunny September day,it’s easy to imagine stopping for several

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days, or weeks, to explore the woods andthe twisting canyon of the River Thayabelow. Just south of �C�ı�zov, though, a ser-ies of concrete plinths, a weathered butstill-imposing barbed wire fence, and alookout tower mark one of the last pre-served sections of Iron Curtain barriersthat remain out of nearly 1000 kilometersof the former Czechoslavakian border-lands (now split between the CzechRepublic and Slovakia) (Figure 4). A signin Czech, German, and English describesthe “No Man’s Land” created by the IronCurtain, where a two to six kilometer-wideborder zone saw villages demolished,access strictly limited, and more than1,000 people killed either trying to cross orguard the border (nearly two-thirds ofthe deaths were those of border guards:ten from cross-border conflicts, the restfrom suicide, electrocution, drowning, oraccidental gunshots).

The pastoral landscapes I’ve just trav-eled through, the hiking trails I fancied,suddenly take on a different shade – insome ways no less beautiful, with the for-ests and fields rolling into the distance, butmore haunted than before. I see before menot just aging strands of barbed wire, but alethal barrier that once carried 10,000 voltsand triggered lights and alarms (and, toooften, death) at the slightest touch. Natureremains vivid here in this scenic cross-bor-der national park, but it is a nature forgedby human action, horror, and only morerecently, hope. When I finally pedal on,dropping down steeply to cross a foot-bridge over the River Thaya, it is with gen-uine appreciation and relief that I find thebridge open, with not a border guard orbarrier in sight. A stone marker quietly cel-ebrates the revitalized border crossing to

Hardegg, Austria’s smallest town, with apopulation of just 88 persons (Figure 5).

G€orsdorf, Germany

Working against the prospect of losingthe memory of a divided Germany, morethan two dozen border museums can befound scattered along the former inner Ger-man borderlands. I visited a number ofthese, including those at M€odlareuth (alsoknown as “little Berlin” for the wall andother fortifications that split this small townin two) and the border crossing at PointAlpha that have emerged as legitimate tour-ist destinations in recent years. The muse-ums were chock full of information andfeatured walls, fencing, watch towers, bun-kers, anti-vehicle structures, control roads,interactive displays, and other remnants orreenactments from the days of the Iron Cur-tain (Figures 6, 7). In many ways, they pro-vide effective reminders and importantdetails about the conditions during Ger-many’s four decades of division.

Perhaps the most powerful meeting Ihad with the actual Iron Curtain, though,came not from one of these more elaborateset pieces but from an unexpected scrap ofwall I encountered far from any tourbuses, near the small village of G€orsdorf.It was growing late on a gray day, with alight drizzle ramping towards downpour,when I rounded a turn after a short climband came upon a 30-meter section ofbarrier wall. It was partially overgrown,verging steadily into vines and trees, and Icould easily have missed it, head down,trying to get another 15 kilometers behindme before nightfall. It looked abandoned,like so many border towns themselves,with several large holes punched into the

concrete and with moss gradually coloniz-ing the rounded top. I could imagine theresidents of G€orsdorf, or perhaps othersfrom the west, tearing down the barrier inthe heady enthusiasm of opening borderslate in 1989, taking sledge hammers, chis-els, pry bars, whatever was at hand, muchas Berliners did under the glare of newscameras from around the world. But here,the hand of the town’s mayor stayed thedemolition (see Cramer 2012). The wallfragment now marks not only the divisionthat persisted for decades, but also theboundary of a small nature reserve thatoffers habitat for a variety of butterflies,bats, and other small animals. I pedaledon, reminded again of the privilege ofcrossing this painful divide unimpeded(Figure 8).

Gompertshausen-Alsleben, Germany

Another day, biking along the Thurin-gian-Bavarian borderlands, the Iron Cur-tain Trail steered me out of the small townof Zimmerau and onto a series of forestpaths straddling the border. Signs for hik-ing and cross country skiing dotted theroute. As I emerged into open fields, Icame to a quiet road that ran between thevillages of Gompertshausen (Thuringia)and Alsleben (Bavaria). At this inner Ger-man border, a large boulder and a benchsit at the base of a 5.4 meter high steelcross. A closer look reveals that the crossis made from the Iron Curtain’s borderfence, ripped out in 1990 and restored indifferent form in 1992. Two small plaquesare affixed to the cross. The first notes thatthe cross was designed and built by a resi-dent of nearby Alsleben. The second is adedication: 1945-1990. To Remember those

Figure 4. �C�ı�zov, Czech Republic, Iron Curtain Traces. Figure 5. Hardegg bridge, Austria.

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Killed on the Border. To Warn the Living forthe Future (my translation) (Figure 9). Themonument is an apt reminder of the prom-ise of rebirth (the border fence, resur-rected!), the hazards of forgetting, and themany layers of meaning that emerge froma single long line drawn on a map.

Acknowledgements

Thank you to the American Geo-graphic Society’s McColl Family Fellowshipand the UCCS Committee on Research andCreative Work for providing researchsupport. I also appreciate the cooperation ofthe Honorable Michael Cramer, Member ofthe European Parliament; visual storytellerand ICT cyclist Kate Trenerry; and theinsights of two anonymous reviewers.

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