Markku Rainer Peltonen Berlin Holocaust Memorial
i n May this year, almost exactly sixty years since the end of both the Second World War and the murderous Nazi regime, Berlin’s new Holocaust memorial was unveiled. It was attended by the German political elite and by guests from all over the world who gathered in the centre of the capital near to where Hitler committed suicide. During the event, many touching speeches were made on the great importance of the memorial, both for Germany and for Europe. Discussion of the Holocaust memorial has lasted for seventeen years. Lea Rosh, the main initiator of the project, says that this memorial to the six million murdered Jews in Europe is from the people in whose country the Holocaust was conceived. The memorial is a private project (i.e. not state driven) that remembers the incomprehensible tragedy and crime in the history of mankind which took place in most parts of twentieth century Europe. As this crime was organised in Berlin, it was regarded as appropriate that the memorial should be placed there, even though there had been a fierce debate within the German Parliament about this memorial, and the mayor of Berlin Diepgen was against it.
In 1994 the first open competition for the memorial was advertised. But after a public discussion and opposition from the then chancellor Helmut Kohl (despite his initial support) regarding the project’s monu- mentality, the competition was advertised a second time, this time for invited artists and architects only. The sculptor Richard Serra and the architect Peter Eisenman won first place. Soon after, Serra withdrew from the project, leaving Eisenman to continue with its realisation on his own. The memorial area — 19,000 square me- tres in all — is covered by 2,711 mutually combined stelae of different heights. Some trees have also been planted. As one can walk through this field of concrete stelae from all directions, it is left to each visitor to find their own way in and out of this vast complex. At first glance this reminds one of an old Jewish cemetery, and with its labyrinthine layout one could easily get lost. Under the stelae area is an information centre where, for example, one can learn about the particular fates of fifteen families of the Shoa.
After the inauguration ceremony the memo- rial was opened to the public, turning into a new tourist attraction in the centre of Berlin. It seems that many visitors were not worried about how to behave appropriately when looking at the field of stelae , including chil- dren playing and jumping from one pillar to the next. For Peter Eisenman this is no cause for concern, since, he says, the memorial has not been degined as a cemetery. The Holocaust memorial in Berlin manifests an important point in the discussion of the German past and it can be important in the fight against present day antisemitism in Ger- many and in Europe. The memorial does not mean an end of the discussion of this period of German history. It is Peter Eisenman’s firm conviction that this memorial to the missing Jews of Europe represents a new approach to memorials in that it should produce more questions about why and how the Shoah was able to happen. g
Rainer Markku Peltonen was born in Finland and has a Dipl.-Ing (architecture) from the Technical University of Berlin and an M.A. (americanistic) Free University of Berlin. He has worked in architectural planning offices in Peru, Germany, Finland, Greece, United Kingdom, as well as pursuing his own architectural planning activities. He lives in Berlin
on |site 14 21
architecture and land
Made with FlippingBook interactive PDF creator