The house at the bridge

by Katie Hafner

At the turn of the century, when Prussia was at its peak, the Wallich family, wealthy German-Jewish bankers, owned a splendid Italianate villa a few dozen yards from the Glienicke Bridge over the Havel River in Potsdam, just across from Berlin. The Wallichs lived there until the Nazis began seizing Jewish property during the Holocaust. First German troops, then Russian soldiers occupied the villa in World War II. Although much of Potsdam was destroyed by Allied bombing, the villa remained intact. After the war, the East German government used the property for a Kinderwochenheim, a uniquely East German institution that functioned as a child-care boarding facility for working parents during the week. In 1961 bulldozers spared the villa as the Berlin Wall was constructed only yards from the front door, bisecting the Havel River and crossing the Glienicke Bridge. The teachers at the Kinderwochenheim and the children they tended witnessed failed attempts to escape over the Wall. Several tim