Piece of the Berlin Wall

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, which began on November 9, 1989, the Shrine of Fatima received fragments of this “iron curtain”.

At the east entrance to the Shrine grounds you can see a large block of the Wall, now transformed into a monument, weighing 2,600kg and 3.60 meters high by 1.20 meters wide. Acquired by subscription by a group of Portuguese, led by Virgílio Casimiro, a Portuguese emigrant living in Germany, the block arrived at the Shrine on March 5, 1991, at 6pm, with the support of the Consulate General of Portugal in Frankfurt.

The Berlin Wall Monument, symbol of the reunification of Germany, was inaugurated on August 13, 1994. The words spoken by John Paul II on his second visit to Fatima in May 1991 were inscribed on the stone next to it – “Thank you, heavenly shepherdess, for having lovingly guided the peoples to freedom!”