When the Berlin Wall first opened in November, 1989 New Jersey businessman Joseph Sciamarelli was so moved that he immediately phoned personal friends in Berlin and asked them to obtain small pieces of the Wall as memorabilia. The souvenir fragments created such a stir among his circle of friends and acquaintances in the New York-New Jersey area, that Sciamarelli conceived the idea of bringing larger, monument sized pieces of the once hated barrier to the United States.

The Berlin Wall Commemorative Group was established to pursue that goal. By early December, several weeks of long distance dealing through private channels in West Berlin finally led to the discovery that LIMEX-BAU, a government building materials agency of the German Democratic Republic (G.D.R.) had been assigned the task of dismantling the 103 miles of steel and concrete that the world at large had come to know as the Berlin Wall.

Negotiations between the Americans and LIMEX-BAU resulted in a plan to raise short-term funds for the G.D.R. health system and at the same time focus public attention on events in the eastern half of the country prior to official German reunification. The Commemorative Group was awarded exclusive rights to distribute full sections of the Wall in the United States. In January 1990 at the request of the Commemorative Group, Berlin born artist Peter Max took part in ceremonies during which the first two-ton slabs of the Wall ever to leave East Germany were unveiled at the Air/Sea/Space Museum aboard the decommissioned aircraft carrier INTREPID in New York harbor.

Subsequent to their initial efforts aboard the INTREPID, the Commemorative Group went on to arrange educational exhibits and seminars on developments occurring in eastern Germany, as well as supplying Museums, Galleries, Universities, and private collectors with the limited supply of Monument sections of the Berlin Wall.

The Commemorative Group has supplied monument sections of the Berlin Wall at sites throughout the United States including: