Berlin (AFP)

Hundreds of runners began Saturday an ultra-marathon of memory on the 160 km route of the former Berlin Wall, at the very place where formerly patrolled armed guards, between barbed wire and watchtowers.

Symbol of the Cold War and the separation of Europe in two blocks, the space where once stood the Berlin Wall, which fell in November 1989, is now a popular place for a stroll, a tourist and artistic attraction. only a few remains remain.

Athletes have also appropriated the remains of the Wall, raised in a few days in the summer of 1961. But this ultra-marathon, if it represents an extraordinary physical challenge, is especially an opportunity to remember his victims.

For its 8th edition, some 500 participants from 32 different nationalities started at 0400 GMT. The most seasoned will have to run all Saturday night before completing the test in the early hours of Sunday.

"You know you'll be in pain, you have to accept it and say to yourself, I can go one step further," said Swedish runner Patrik Gullerstrom, 43, who has already competed four times.

Russian-born Israeli Tom Shenbrun, 50, says his grandfather was a soldier in the Red Army when she entered Berlin in 1945.

"As a Jew, it is something very special, you feel the story all along the way (...) You can understand how (the Wall) divided a nation, families, friends".

- 138 killed -

The route goes through the Brandenburg Gate and the legendary Checkpoint Charlie, but also by many monuments dedicated to the 138 people killed while trying to go to the West.

"What really impresses me is the number of participants, because the Wall's history is important to them," said Nina Blisse, a race organizer. "Many do not do it to run fast, they read every memorial along the way," she says.

The organizers do not skimp on the symbols to put the race in a historical dimension.

Entries for the 2020 event will for example be open at 18:57 (16:57 GMT) on 9 November, to mark the exact time in 1989 that the Communist GDR lifted the ban on travel, causing the fall of the Wall.

Each year, one of the 138 victims is chosen for a special tribute: his portrait is on the medal of those who reach the end of the race and a ceremony takes place on the course at the exact place of his death.

At the first edition in 2011, this is the last victim of the Wall, Chris Gueffroy, killed in early 1989, who had been honored. Sunday, it is his mother who will give the medals.

- "It will never leave" -

Last year, a special tribute was paid to the youngest victim, Jörg Hartmann, a 10-year-old boy shot dead by East German border guards in 1966 while attempting to visit his father at the Where is.

"I still have goose bumps," says Olaf Ilk, born in East Germany and co-organizer of the race.

The organizers are often personally concerned.

One of them, Andreas Pfeiffer, born in the East, was imprisoned for two years in the 1980s for attempting to cross the Iron Curtain between Hungary and Austria.

He had been released in West Germany as part of a program that saw 33,755 political prisoners sold by East Germany for 3.5 billion Deutschmarks.

"I've never been a runner, but when I first heard about the race, I wanted to get involved," he says, confident that he still has "thrills" at each crossing. from the old border. "It will never go away."

From a strictly sporting point of view, this ultra-marathon is a tour de force. "We have to accept the fact that we run for 24 hours," says Nina Blisse, who finished the 2014 and 2015 editions in less than 26 hours.

The course record was set in 2014 by Britain's Mark Perkins in 13 hours and 6 minutes.

© 2019 AFP