There are few cities in Europe where the 20th century has left such deep marks as in Berlin. There are many places in the German capital that remind us of the Second World War and the Cold War. Since 2005, the Holocaust Memorial, fully called the Mahnmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas, has been located, geographically speaking, in the power center of Hitler’s Third Reich. The story of the founding of the Mahnmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas begins when, in January 1989, a citizens’ initiative was submitted to erect a monument in memory of the murdered European Jews. The initiative has the support of, among others, former Chancellor and former Mayor of Berlin Willy Brandt and writer Günter Grass.
Design
More than ten years later, the German Bundestag opted for a design by the American architect Peter Eisenman. His design consists of a field with 2,711 stelae (upright stone blocks) of up to 4.7 meters high. According to the designer, the pillars, which you can walk between, should create a feeling of disorientation and loneliness. An information center will be set up under the monument. The stele field, constructed on a glowing surface of 19,000 square meters, will be located on historic grounds. Located in close proximity to the Brandenburg Gate, part of the pillars are located above the former bunker of Goebbels, the Nazi minister of propaganda. A stone’s throw away were the former Reich Chancellery and the bunker where Hitler took his life at the end of April 1945.
Build
On January 27, 2000, exactly 55 years after the liberation of the Auschwitz extermination and concentration camp, the symbolic start of construction will be celebrated. Nevertheless, it would take another 3 years before construction of the monument and its information center actually started. During construction, the public is kept informed with information panels placed on the boundary of the construction site. The monument was opened on May 10, 2005 amid great international interest. Two days later the site is also accessible to the public. At the end of 2005, 350,000 people had already visited the monument.
Discussion
The monument causes a lot of discussion in German society, which is one of the reasons why more than 16 years have passed between the initiative and its realization. Some critics were against the prominent location in the center of the city and far-right Germans felt that the German ‘guilt culture’ should finally be put to an end. A number of Holocaust survivors were also unhappy with the final design, saying it was too anonymous and abstract.
Exhibition
Below the monument is the Ort der Informationen, which can be entered from the east side of the monument. Before entering this museum, the visitor is subjected to a small security check. The exhibition begins with an overview of the period 1933-1945, with an emphasis on the persecution of the Jews. The six large portraits represent the six million Jewish victims. After the first room, the visitor is guided through four different rooms. These are successively the Hall of Dimensions , which focuses on personal documents (diaries, letters and notes) from the time of the persecution of the Jews. In the next Room of Families, different Jewish lifeworlds are outlined on the basis of 15 families. In the Hall of Names , names are continuously mentioned and biographies of murdered European Jews can be heard. The last room, the Hall of Locations , provides insight into how the Holocaust spread across Europe. After leaving the museum, the visitor stands in the field of steles.
Accessibility
The stele field is public and continuously accessible. The Ort der Information is closed on Mondays and open the rest of the week from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., from April to September until 8 p.m. The only days, other than Mondays, on which the museum is closed are December 24 to 26 and January 1. Admission to the museum is free, for a small fee you can get an audio tour, which is also available in Dutch. The exhibition is suitable for visitors aged 14 and over.
Monument and museum are located on Cora Berlinerstraße, the nearest metro stations are Brandenburg Gate, Potsdamer Platz, Mohrenstraße and Französische Straße.
read more
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- Camp Westerbork, a timeline
- What preceded Westerbork: the anti-Jewish measures