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At the first sight
of the Holocaust Memorial, one is amazed and wonders what it
represents. We all stand by the edge of the street bordering the
American Embassy and backing the Tiergaten Park in Berlin. From here,
one has a landscape view of the memorial; it looks like a sea of
moulded square bricks.

It is not until you
make the move to start walking in-between that you realise that it can
swallow one up, height-wise; you will feel so small. Our guide asks us
to walk for 30 minutes in the maze of brick and come back to tell her
what we felt, what kind of ideas we had. Then the proper tour.

Done in memory of
the six million Jewish victims of the holocaust, the memorial was built
in 2005 but its history dates back to the late 80s.

It was designed by
Peter David Eisenmann, an architect known for his radical designs and
architectural theories, often characterised as deconstructive.

How do we preserve memory?

Germans started
asking how they would deal with the memory of the holocaust in 1987,
when the Berlin Wall was still in place and there were two Germanys.

It was in West
Germany that the discussion started. People asked: how it is possible
after 40 years that there is no memorial to commemorate the biggest
crime in German history? There were survivors, but they decrease in
number with the passing years. How do we keep the memory alive? These
and other questions kept coming up.

A citizens’
initiative group was formed; they walked the streets canvassing
opinion, asking citizens and prominent figures for signatures, to lobby
for government support. They also sought donations through media
campaigns.

How do we deal with history?

The next phase of
questioning covered the following: “How do we deal with our history?
How do we deal with the past?” This sparked a big debate with differing
opinions; some for a memorial, others against. “What was the memorial
about? Why do you build a memorial?”

It has the purpose
of telling the history but most importantly, it is for future
generations to ensure that the same event does not repeat itself. This
was difficult for most Germans; they did not want future Germans to
feel guilty about their history and the part they played in the Second
World War.

The memorial should
be about taking responsibility, to ensure a remembrance of the
holocaust; and as a sign of respect to the victims and their offspring.
It is not about feeling guilty. Nonetheless, this clarification took
about four to five years to gain wider acceptance.

What about non-Jewish victims?

The Jews were not
the only group of people persecuted by the Nazis, so the question
arose: ‘What about the other groups?’ Victim groups of the holocaust
included homosexuals, the disabled, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Gypsies.

The Jewish
community in Germany was not comfortable with the idea of a memorial,
fearing it could spark a new wave of anti-Semitism. They did not want
people saying: ‘The Jews are at it again.’

There was also
another theory put forward by those against a memorial: such a
structure could imply closure: You build a memorial, that is it, ‘we
are done, let’s move on’. Some thought it would no longer be about
keeping memory alive, but coming to terms. Many argued that you can’t
come to term with this kind of past.

The European Dimension

In 1992, the then
German Chancellor, Helmut Kohl, made the political decision that the
memorial would be dedicated to the largest group of victims alone: the
Jews. A major reason for Kohl’s decision was what historians call ‘the
European dimension’. Of the six million Jews exterminated, only 165,
000 were German Jews. Whereas, the Nazis wanted to ‘cleanse’ the entire
Europe of all Jews.

When the Wehrmacht
(the Nazi army) started matching all over Europe, they hunted and
killed Jews wherever they went. In Poland, Romania, Russia – all over
Eastern Europe – they came down to Greece, Cretan Island, took the
Jewish people and deported them to the Auschwitz Concentration Camp.
They went on to Italy, France, the Netherlands, up to Norway and
Denmark… Today, only an estimated 10, 000 Jews live in Poland; the
country once had the largest Jewish population in Europe, numbering
several millions.

Why this location?

The location chosen
for the memorial is in the vicinity of embassies, cultural
institutions, businesses and residential premises, the Brandenburg gate
which is the symbol of Berlin, as well as the Tiergaten Park. All these
express the public character of the memorial, passing the message that
they are not hiding the history but facing it.

It is a symbolic site, for it was the centre of the former Nazi government.

Translating the history to where the memorial is located, between the East and West, it is a memorial of a unified Germany.

What should the memorial look like?

In 1994, the
government decided to hold an open artistic competition. Anyone could
take part. There would be a committee made up of five members of the
Citizens’ Initiative, five from the Berlin Senate, and five from the
government. They would choose the winning idea from anonymous entries.
528 ideas were received. The 15-person committee had to choose one. It
was a chaotic process, and there was no headway, even after an
additional two years.

The government then
changed the procedure. It was streamlined to a selection of 25
architects and artists, to be judged by five committee members. The
committee eventually chose two ideas from a total of 19; and Chancellor
Kohl selected the winning entry. The final design was made by Peter
Eisenmann, with the initial input of a sculptor named Serra.

Bundestag involvement

Helmut Kohl could
not actualise the idea for the memorial until the German elections of
1998. A new government subsequently came into power and voices were
raised in opposition to the memorial. The Bundestag had to vote on it.
A six-storey building with research centre and a library were among the
new concepts proposed.

Eventually, it was agreed that the design would stay exactly as
previously conceived, with an underground exhibit on the story of the
holocaust. The Holocaust Memorial opened in 2005; its fifth anniversary
was held last May.