Photographer Hans W. Mende writes in his epilogue, "From the autumn of 1978 to the spring of 1979, I wandered along the Wall surrounding West Berlin, documenting under the working title 'The Island' the area of the city that over a period of almost 20 years had become defined by the Wall." Any viewer of this stark collection can feel the silence and the heaviness of these years in Berlin. Mende's still, determined photographic style and the black and white photographic medium seem to be the life and blood of the scenes he documents. Most of the images are empty of people, leaving the buildings, and the wall, to speak hollowly of the times.