The hook
A museum in a Cold War National Guard armory in Culver City holds the world's largest collection of things from East Germany, and the longest stretch of the Berlin Wall outside Berlin sits out front.
01Why it's worth it
A young historian started collecting the material culture of the Eastern Bloc in 2002, the stuff most museums ignored: East German radios and toiletries and toys, Stasi surveillance gear, propaganda art, uniforms, films, even a chunk of dictator Erich Honecker's estate, now a hundred thousand objects, the largest such collection anywhere. It moved into a decommissioned 1950 armory, itself a Cold War building, and it's free. Ten original segments of the Berlin Wall stand along Wilshire nearby, the longest run of it left outside Germany. It's a strange, specific, quietly moving place about how ordinary life actually looked on the other side of the wall.
02How to experience it
It's on Culver Boulevard in Culver City, about six hours from the Bay. Free, open Friday through Sunday. Give it an hour or two, and go find the Wall segments while you're in the area.