Refugee Processing Center
Marienfelde is also known for a large refugee processing center which operated during the cold war. The center, which opened in 1953, was the first stop for more than 1.5 million refugees fleeing communism in East Germany via West Berlin. Refugees arriving in West Berlin were sent to the center where they received medical treatment, food, identification papers, and housing until they could be permanently re-settled in the West.
Even after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the center continued processing East German refugees until unification a year later. Today the center remains in use, processing ethnic Germans who are immigrating to Germany from the former Soviet Union.
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