Selling Pieces of Berlin Wall

Now that the Berlin Wall is up for sale (at $10 a chip) in major department stores across the nation, what’s next? Will we be seeing pieces of the double-decker freeway which took several lives as it caved in during the recent earthquake in Oakland? Hmmm, that should make a big hit with one’s “Valentine.” Or, how about a souvenir from Auschwitz for that special someone’s birthday?

Profiteering off the pain and suppression of human beings does not seem to shake up many American consumers who, it appears, have become apathetic in their purchases. One department store informed me that the very day the Berlin Wall went on sale, the phones rang off the hook from eager-to-buy customers. Well, that bit of news must be thrilling data, indeed, to the East Germans who were terrorized by the Wall for 28 years.

Having been in East Berlin during the early ‘80s, I witnessed, and experienced myself, the intimidation the Wall exerted upon its prisoners. Aiding in, and sometimes directly responsible for, the loss of human life, the Berlin Wall is surely the world’s most successful barrier ever built.

And now, Americans are buying it as if it were a new pet rock. Looks like compassion and good taste really are gone for good unless someone figures out a way to put them on the market.

SHARON Y. TOWNER

Glendale