Experiencing the Disorientation of the Holocaust in Berlin, Germany
You'll wonder if it's supposed to be a bar graph or a maze. You'll start out feeling big but soon you will be crushed. Opened to the public in 2005, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe is a massive, overwhelming and ultimately agonizing collection of concrete blocks of varying heights that is impossible to miss. You cannot maneuver though Berlin without acknowledging the horrors that took place in Germany's not-too-distant past, and the intruding nature of the memorial just might be its most important feature. The experience is harrowing, but the message is imperative for all of mankind.
Berlin has few sunny days, but when it does the city is bright, warm and exuberant. On these days the foreboding maze of mute concrete epitaphs dedicated to the Murdered Jews of Europe warms too. Locals will be seen reclining on its black statements like they were deck chairs; the columns crisp shadows offer a drowsy place to hide from the sun; the corridors between these tomes that typically funnel harsh wind channel a soft breeze instead. Inappropriate as this scene first seems, Berlin is a city zealously aware of its past but also a city fiercely grateful for its present.
You'll wonder if it's supposed to be a bar graph or a maze. You'll start out feeling big but soon you will be crushed. Opened to the public in 2005, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe is a massive, overwhelming and ultimately agonizing collection of concrete blocks of varying heights that is impossible to miss. You cannot maneuver though Berlin without acknowledging the horrors that took place in Germany's not-too-distant past, and the intruding nature of the memorial just might be its most important feature. The experience is harrowing, but the message is imperative for all of mankind.
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