THE PETER FECHTER MEMORIAL SHRINE

I took this photo in November, 1966 of the memorial shrine erected in memory of Peter Fechter who was the first of many to be brutally machine-gunned down by the East German Vopo Guards while he was trying to escape from Communist totalitarian and bloodthirsty tyranny in East Berlin to freedom in the West shortly after the Berlin Wall (part of the Iron Curtain) quickly went up in 1961. Herr Fechter, whose voice was just barely above a whisper after being shot full of holes was heard to cry out ,,HILPFE! HILPFE!" which is German for "HELP! HELP!" which are believed to be his last words before he died. A U.S. Army officer, part of the post-World-War-II Joint Allied Occupation Forces in Berlin was heard to say, "It's not our problem." in reply to somebody asking him if he could help. The officer's reply was correct as he probably realized that any kind of foreign intervention including American intervention in that area could have sparked an international incident which concievably could have caused the Cold War to quickly escalate into World War III---of which we, by the way are now far more in danger than we were back in 1961. Believe it or not, it was back then shortly before the Wall of Shame went up that American and Soviet tanks actually confronted each other which almost started World War III! Up until The Wall came down, others who tried to escape were either gunned down (more than 100 of them) or were arrested, taken away and never seen again and probably no records were ever kept so that nobody could ever prove that those arrested persons ever even existed---at least it seemed that way. How about that to illustrate a world of nothing but todays with no yesterdays and no tomorrows?
Camera used: Voigtlander Bessamatic Deluxe 35mm SLR with its Zeiss-made Color Septon 50mm f-2 lens
Original film used: Kodachrome II. I converted this photo to black-and-white with my Picasa software in order to emphasize the deliberate Communist-created totalitarian tyranny, negativity and gloom in what was that horrible place as well as to emphasize the fact that communism, exactly like "Islamic radicalism" is, by far and wide the absolutely cheapest way to control any country. This includes how utterly cheap human life is to the communists and to today's purported "Islamic radicals" of their ISIS totalitarian tyranny who have also gunned down people who were trying to escape to freedom.
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