European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - April 4, 1990, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Wednesday april 4, 1990 the stars and stripes a a a Page 9 Over her Guben City in search of identity a amps Joseph Owen past the pedestrian crossing area at the Guben Friendship Street Barrier is Gubin in  unlikely to solve problems of Border location by Joseph Owen staff writer Guben East Germany a should German unification occur it probably wont heal the wound that world War ii inflicted on Guben. The City straddles the Border Between East Germany and Poland and unlike Berlin Guben seems destined to stay divided. Guben was split in 1945 when the allies set the Eastern Border of Defeated Germany along the Neisse River ceding some parts of Germany to Poland including the East Side of Guben. The War and its aftermath changed Guben so profoundly that Little nostalgia for the old Days remains according to Gubens cultural director Edith Rademacher. A the Eastern part of the City was almost destroyed by the outbreak of War a she said. A there was almost nothing  Rademacher an East Bank native who moved West of the River with her parents in 1934, said she has returned to see the site of her childhood Home but the neighbourhood is altered beyond recognition. A it exists Only in my memory a she said. The East Side is unfamiliar to gub Eners for a couple of reasons it is now a polish Community called Gubin. The Border was sealed for 27 years after the War preventing visits. It was sealed again from 1980 to 1989 to Stop Poland a Solidarity labor movement from influencing East germans. Guben was chartered As a City in 1235 and has been part of Brandenburg Bohemia Saxony Prussia and a United Germany. It was Home to some 50,000 people in 1944, but that changed drastically when world War ii Drew to a close the following year. A in the last weeks of the War Guben practically was converted into a fortified City a said historian Bernd Pilz the founder and director of Gubens City museum. The nazi government forcibly evacuated the inhabitants Between february and april leaving the German wehrmacht a 11th army to defend Guben against heavy artillery fire from the approaching soviet army a 1st byelorussian front. When the War ended the allies agreed at Potsdam to cede German land East of the Oder and Neisse Rivers to Poland. The poles drove most remaining germans out. Like Guben the River cities of Frankfurt an Der Oder Forst and Gorlitz also lost territory but their Eastern Banks were mostly residential fringe areas. Guben lost four fifths of its land including the City Center. The West Side teeming with thousands of refugees became an Arm with no body. In 1946, the soviets confiscated All Industrial works in Western Guben. They dismantled a munitions Plant a hat factory and other industries and transported them to the soviet Union. The East German government later replaced them with a synthetic textiles Plant another hat works and a Towel factory. The soviets later established a Large restricted zone for military use in the Forest West of Guben in effect turning the City into an isthmus. Most prewar residents have moved away or died. Even those still in Guben live in a starkly different world where most buildings Date from the postwar period and Many old landmarks arc gone or Bear different names. Gubens main Street for example once called Frankfurt Street became Adolf Hitler Street in the 1930s, then Friendship Street under the communists. The former old Post Street which runs North from the Only vehicular Bridge Over the Neisse is called Cygankiewicz Street in Honor of a former polish prime minister. A i know Many gub Eners who can to even pronounce the name let alone be Able to write it a Pilz said of Cygankiewicz Street. A so there a a loss of  names at one location have come and gone fast enough to make a cartographer dizzy. Tannenberg Square became Friedrich Ebert Square in the 1920s, honouring a president of Germany a Weimar Republic. The nazis Tore Down the Ebert Monument in 1933 and restored the original name. After the War the communists installed a t-34 soviet tank As a memorial and changed the name to liberation Square. Now municipal officials Are considering reviving the original name again Pilz said. Edith Rademacher even the City itself was renamed. Since 1961 it officially has been Wilhelm pick Stadt Guben in memory of a native son who became East Germany a first president. But residents just Call the place Guben. Bullet holes from the 1945 Battle still pock Mark a few buildings near the River. But gub Eners say their town looks better than its polish twin across the River. Residents of polish Gubin also suffer from a sense of alienation Pilz said because Many polish families living there were forced by the soviets in 1945 to leave Eastern Poland now the Western Ukraine. But the two cities have grown closer since the Border reopened last year. Rademacher said Guben participated in Gubins annual Spring festival on the Neisse for the first time in 1989 and will again this year. A with the introduction of visa free traffic we have very Good relations in our City a she said. A a we be always said the Neisse Bridge should be a Bridge that binds not one that  a. A amps Joseph Owen historian Bernd Pilz the founder and director of Gubens City museum holds a 1922 map of the City