Berlin : The Holocaust Memorial

the New Synagogue on Oranienburger Straße

November 9 is not only the celebratory date when the Berlin wall came down in 1989, but also the less celebratory date of "Reichskristallnacht" when in 1938 all over Germany and Austria synagogues were attacked, looted, burnt down by Nazis and their followers, while many onlookers, even fire brigades, enjoyed the spectacle and did nothing to help. Kristallnacht - the night of the broken glass chandeliers, as it was euphemistally called - is regarded as the beginning of the Holocaust.

I was born on Kristallnacht-Memorial Day twenty-four years later between lunch and dinner conveniently at 5.10 pm so that my mother missed neither (so she said stressing that I never made a fuss about anything) and so that my father could attend the memorial service in the evening. Somehow this had always bothered me, to be born on such a bad date, and there are other fateful events that had happened on that date over the centuries. With the fall of the Berlin wall, this shadow at least for me may have been lifted.

So today, I am writing about the Holocaust Memorial, one of my favourite places in Berlin and one that I head to very often.

It is a place where I love to go to take pictures. Any time of day and in any light it is attractive for photographers, with its straight lines, slanting shadows and dark alleys. 

interesting possibilities with a strong tele lens

And although it is constructed like a cemetery with huge concrete slabs with tombstones and headstones, and seems totally barren and grey, it is always lively and full of people.  At any time of day people will move between the stones, sometimes silently, sometimes not so, sometimes children playing hide and seek, or sit on them and have their lunch. 

"Ghosts"

It is in the middle of the city, between the Adlon Hotel, the Tiergarten and the shopping area, some say: on the most valuable piece of real estate in Berlin. The huge area is very accessible, not fenced. Is this not the best way to remember the 6 million Jewish people murdered? To integrate their memory in the day to day lives of Berliners, in the middle of the busy metropolis, move through the labyrinthian pathways between the stones and melt the stark impressions, that this memorial leaves on everybody, into their memory of a visit of Germany and Berlin.