Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
1
MEMORIAL CONTROVERSY
Even by the standards of Berlin, which is well used to hotly debating most bricks-and-mortar
city centre projects, the
Holocaust Memorial
was
controversial
. It was particularly criticized
for its unnecessarily large scale and location, its use of prime real estate with little historical
significance and its incredible costs for a city with tight finances. Another criticism was that the
rectangular stones were too reminiscent of SS militarism; more compelling were arguments
that memorials at former camps, like Sachsenhausen (see p.174), are more relevant, and that
the brass cobbles (
Stolpersteine
) commemorating victims outside their former homes are more
poignant and all-pervading.
One particularly contentious twist in the tale of the memorial's construction concerns
Degussa
, the company that provided anti-gra
ti paint for the blocks. As this was a daughter
company of IG-Farben - who produced Cyclon-B, the gas used in the Nazi gas chambers -
some thought it wasn't appropriate to involve them in the project. After much debate, their
tender was confirmed: it was argued that the whole nation was building the monument and
that no organization or company should be hindered from contributing.
The Gay Holocaust Memorial
Across the road from the Holocaust Memorial, the fringes of the Tiergarten park
hold another concrete oblong, dedicated as a
Gay Holocaust Memorial
. O
cially
called “he Memorial to Homosexuals Persecuted by Nazis”, it remembers the
54,000 people who were convicted of homosexual acts under the regime; an
estimated eight thousand of these died in concentration camps. Inaugurated by
Berlin's gay mayor Klaus Wowereit (see p.239) in 2008, the 4m-high monument
mimics those commemorating Jewish victims, but also contains a window behind
which plays a film of two men kissing.
The Gypsy Holocaust Memorial
he most recently completed of the trio of Holocaust local memorials, the
Gypsy
Holocaust
Memorial
, lies in the northeastern corner of the Tiergarten park beside
the Reichstag. Unveiled in 2012, a decade after its inception, it commemorates the
half-million Roma and Sinti that died at the hands of the Nazis. Haunting violin music
plays around a circular pond, surrounded by rough stone flags; at the centre is a rock
upon which a single fresh flower is placed every day. According to Dani Karavan, the
aptly named Israeli sculptor behind the project, this flower has supreme significance as
the murdered Sinti and Roma lie in unmarked plots in huge cemeteries with only
plants growing above them. he flower lies on a triangle, which represents the triangle
the Nazis forced all gypsies to wear. Meanwhile the dark pond reflects the trees, the
Reichstag and anyone who gazes into it - in that way the viewer becomes part of the
memorial and part of the process of remembrance.
Hitler's bunker and around
A minute's walk south of the Holocaust Memorial, along Gertrude-Kolmar-Strasse,
is its oddest possible bedfellow: the site of
Hitler's bunker
, where the Führer spent his
last days, issuing meaningless orders as the Battle of Berlin raged above. Here Hitler
married Eva Braun and wrote his final testament: he personally was responsible for
nothing; he had been betrayed by the German people, who had proved unequal to his
leadership and deserved their fate. On April 30, 1945, he shot himself, and his body
was hurriedly burned by loyal o
cers. A roadside sign at the end of the
Ministergärten
(see p.39) provides a plan of the bunker detailing its rooms and their functions.
hough it's often assumed that the bunker was glamorously furnished, the diagram
accurately reveals how spartan the facility was.
