The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe: Denkmal für die Ermordeten Juden Europas

 

In my initial blog on Berlin I shared that it was impossible not to be confronted by the schwer . The dark and problematic legacy of Hitler and the Nazis. Nowhere is this more in evidence than in two remarkable sites that I visited during my stay. The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe and the Typography of Terror. This blog will deal with the first Die Denkmal für die Ermordenten Junden Europas.

Prior to visiting the site, I was already struck by the language describing the Memorial…..Murdered. The strength, censorious and exactness of the word. Not killed, not dead, murdered.

The language deliberately chosen by the German government. Appropriate and difficult.

As I had deliberately not done any research prior to my visit, the initial impact of the memorial was both sombre and visceral. Located centrally in Berlin near the Brandenburger Tor and the Tiergarten, on a large block, the site is covered by over 2700 concrete slabs ( stelae) in a grid pattern.

 

The stelae are each almost 8 by 3 feet and vary in height. In rows with enough room for a person to walk between them they are laid out on the rising and falling ground. Were they meant to be coffins, a cemetery? As we walked along the alleyways between the stelae we would disappear as the ground dipped or as we turned a corner, or changed direction. Eerie, grave, sobering, my mind was filled with thoughts of how Jewish families disappeared, gone–removed from the streets of Europe. 6 million Jews. The sun would appear and disappear….light, dark, light, dark. It was confusing, troubling, and overwhelmingly isolating.

The installation was designed by Peter Eisenman. While he said that the memorial has no specific meaning, that it represents a radical approach, leaving room for personal interpretation, my friends and I experienced similar feelings. Wolfgang Thiers a President of Germany’s parliament described the piece as a place where people can grasp ‘what loneliness, powerless and despair mean’.

 

 

At one end of the site is the information centre.  The exhibition is remarkable! Incredibly moving and superbly curated. Through a series of rooms you discover the timeline and history of the Final Solution, you are given insights on how Hitler’s policies impacted 15 specific Jewish families, you hear read out load the names of the victims in the Room of Names, and you are introduced to the scale and terror of the death camps. The rooms were a deep contrast to the stellae site above. One did not need to imagine. Visual reminders, pictures, documents, letters, postcards, testimony and recorded memory of survivors. It is real, detailed, close and very personal. Each of the four room tells the story in a very concise and deliberate way.

It was hard to find words to describe our experience when we left the memorial.

 

As days have passed and I have reflected and researched, I think if you had time for only one thing in Berlin, visit this memorial.

It honours the Jewish people.

It speaks to how Germany has wrestled with its schwer history.

It prompts discussion and reflection on how we govern and are governed.

It is timely. It is what we need as a reminder of the outcomes of hate and prejudice.