Reagan Library to Receive Big Chunk of Berlin Wall : Donation: The former president will attend an April 12 ceremony where the 6,000-pound piece will be presented.

A 6,000-pound section of the Berlin Wall will become part of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, a spokeswoman said Wednesday.

The enormous piece of the infamous wall is the first gift to be installed at the library, said Charles Jelloian, director of operations for the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation in Los Angeles.

The section of wall will be presented to Reagan on April 12 by an East German organization during a special ceremony at the library site west of Simi Valley.

In an apparent show of support for a unified Germany, officials from East and West Germany will be at the ceremony, said Reagan spokeswoman Cathy Goldberg.

Measuring 9 1/2 feet tall and 3 1/2 feet wide, the section was donated by the Berlin Wall Commemorative Group.

The 26 1/2-mile-long Berlin Wall that divided the city of Berlin was erected by East Germany with help from the Soviet Union in 1961. The wall was built to prevent refugees from fleeing to the West.

Parts of the wall between Brandenburg and the Allied crossing point were torn down in February.

Although it is not the first gift of a political nature given to Reagan, the wall may be the heaviest and bulkiest piece included in the museum collection, Jelloian said.

Unlike more than 30,000 presidential artifacts in storage, the wall section will immediately go into the completed portion of the library.

However, the public will not be able to see the wall until the library opens in early 1991. The library is little more than half-completed.

The wall section does pose some problems in planning the exhibit that eventually will be stored in the 25,000-square-foot-museum, Jelloian said.

“We’re thinking about how we’re going to get it up the hill,” he said.