Monument to the victims of the Holocaust

The Holocaust Memorial is a memorial erected in the center of Berlin to commemorate the Jews who suffered at the hands of the Nazis. The monument is located near the Brandenburg Gate. 2711 concrete slabs of various sizes are lined up on a huge field.

The Holocaust in history

Literally, the term "Holocaust" is translated from Greek as "burnt offering". So they began to call the mass destruction of races and social groups of people by the Nazis during the Second World War. A negative attitude was formed among supporters of Hitler's ideas towards representatives of non-traditional sexual orientation, the Communist Party, mentally unbalanced citizens, the Jewish and Gypsy diaspora. 6 million innocent people during the war died at the hands of the Nazis for a year.

The idea of emergence

The author of the idea is the publicist Leah Roche, who in 1988 expressed her intention to honor the memory of the Jews. She created a foundation that was engaged in choosing a place and raising funds for the installation of the memorial. A few years later, funds were collected, and a competition was announced to develop a project for the monument. In total, more than 520 authors participated in the selection. The project of Peter Eisenman, an American architect, was recognized as the best. The construction of the monument began in 2001 and ended 4 years later.

Description of the monument

The main requirement of the fund for the monument was the absence of Jewish symbols. As conceived by the author, the memorial was a labyrinth of faceless slabs. The plates are installed close to each other, one person can pass between them.

Concrete sarcophagi have a similar base, but different heights. The deeper you go between them, the higher the "wall" becomes. They are made of a special type of concrete, which is resistant to paint and water. There are no inscriptions on the plates. Once between the plates, a person feels hopelessness and fear. Despondency and despair haunt everyone who walks past the faceless concrete, trying to find a way out. At the end you can see the trees, and above - the blue sky, but the stone labyrinth for a long time does not let anyone out where life is in full swing. A similar sense of doom was experienced by those who were sentenced to death during the war.

Under the memorial there is an information center where there is information about all the victims of the Holocaust. Relatives can find information about the place of their death, the history of persecution and execution. There are 6 rooms in the museum, in which personal belongings of the victims and their photographs have been preserved.

Relationship to the memorial

After the stone forest appeared in the center of Berlin, there were conflicting opinions about it. Members of the Jewish diaspora have acknowledged that a memorial is not the best form of mourning. The inhabitants of Berlin themselves, living near the Monument to the Victims of the Holocaust, expressed their dissatisfaction with the choice of a place for its installation. In the middle of the seething life, an island suddenly appeared, more like a stone cemetery. All these points of view indicate that the memorial makes an indelible impression on people.

Every year, millions of tourists come to the monument to commemorate those who died during World War II.