The Berlin Wall exhibition at Union Station

If you have not yet made it over to Union Station, there is a good reason to go before the end of the year. The Berlin Wall exhibition, titled 'The Berlin Wall. A World Divided.', has been running since late May and does not close until December 13, so you have a few months left to catch it. It is the North American premiere of an international traveling show produced by the Spanish company Musealia in collaboration with the Berlin Wall Foundation, and it takes over the Bank of America Gallery, a 20,000-square-foot room.

The exhibition is laid out in four sections — 'A World Divided', 'Before the Wall', 'Division', and 'Living with the Wall', followed by 'Global Transformation and the End of the Cold War' — and it traces the conflict from its origins right through to the fall of the Wall in 1989. What makes it worth the trip is the sheer amount of real material on display: original sections of the Berlin Wall and more than 200 authentic objects from the period, many of which have never been shown in public in North America. An unprecedented collaboration brought together more than 40 lenders from 20 international institutions to pull it together.

Up close, the objects tell the human side of the story. You will see the Wall's evolution from barbed wire to obstacles like 'Stalin's lawn', fragments of spy tunnels and escape tunnels, notes smuggled across the divide, forged documents, a child's nuclear badge, and flags from the peaceful revolutions of the 1980s. There are also personal items from victims of the Hiroshima bombing. Immersive environments recreate Cold War-era Berlin, and personal testimonies from people who lived behind the Wall are woven throughout. An audio guide is included with admission and comes in English, Spanish, and French.

On the practical side, the exhibition is open Monday to Friday from 10 am to 5 pm, Saturday from 10 am to 6 pm, and Sunday from 11 am to 6 pm, with the last ticket sold two hours before closing. Tickets are $26 for adults, $23 for seniors 65 and over, $15 for children aged 4 to 12, and $15 for USKC members, with a $4.50 EBT price and a $48 Anytime Collector's Pass; military tickets are $23 and must be bought at the box office, and children 0 to 3 get in free. A 10% fee is added to each ticket to help preserve Union Station, and an official exhibition catalog is available for $35. Groups of 15 or more need to book in advance.

There is more to the visit than just the galleries. A Speaker Series brings in experts like Mark Adams on the Berlin Airlift and Shelly Cline on the duality of November 9th in German history, and for a limited time you can meet U.S. Army veterans who served in West Berlin during the Cold War, typically on weekends. A Veteran Scholarship Fund also provides free access to Kansas City veterans. Union Station sits near the free Kansas City Streetcar line, about 20 minutes from the airport, and shares the building with Science City, the planetarium, movies, dining and shopping, so it is easy to build a full day around it.