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The Holocaust Memorial in Berlin.

Cleopatra

Philosopher
C
Joined
Mar 15, 2003
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Do you believe that Germans have to live the rest of their lives as a nation starring pillars of cement in the centre of Berlin that will suppose to remind them of the Holocaust?

I find this memorial outrageous. The dead won't return and you cannot keep haunting the lives of the offsprings of the WWII Germans with huge monuments that are created to invoke horror.

It took them 15 years to decide to build this memorial, this means that it was really painful.

What's your opinion about that?

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0508memorial08.html
 
I can't find a picture of the memorial.

My opinion is that like any public art project, it will be largely ignored once its built except by tourists.
 
If I may chime in, as one of those Germans...?

Thanks.

To put it short and concise: A memorial - good. This memorial - bad.

I´ve only seen a model of the memorial so far - well, actually pictures of the model, but anway... from what I´ve seen, the memorial is an ugly scar on the face of Berlin. Not for being a memorial for the murdered Jews, of course, but for being a piece of abstract modern art that, if you haven´t been told what its purpose is, you´d never consider a holocaust memorial.

I´m strongly in favor of having a memorial - but please, make it a real memorial, not some abstract art exhibit. I haven´t been to the Yad Vashem holocaust memorial, but from what I´ve heard it is a museum an archive - wouldn´t it be a far better memorial for the holocaust to create a duplicate of Yad Vashem in Germany, with duplicates of all the documents and exhibits, so that people can actually go and see what the memorial is all about? There probably are people out there (over here, that is) who don´t really know what the holocaust was, or who don´t believe it but can be swayed by evidence such as can be found in Yad Vashem. Making that evidence available to those people - and to future generations here - would be a much better memorials than a field of concrete blocks. Of course, that´s just my humble opinion.
 
I'm torn. Few Germans living today were alive in the 30's and 40's and only have their grandparents' stories of it, so maybe it isn't needed.

Then I read about a neo-Nazi march scheduled for V-E day in Germany, and some (not in power) Austrian politicians making comments about "how the existence of Nazi gas Chambers still needed to be investigated" and another who argued about the"brutal persecution of Nazis after WW2". (And no, I do not have a internet reference, this comes from the Huntsville Times today from an AP byline).

So maybe it is just as well to build it.

I still remember vividly a cartoon by the editorial cartoonist Pat Oliphant, sometime in the 1980's, of a young father and his maybe 8-yo son walking in front of the Vietnam Memorial. The conversation went something like this (Italics mine):

Son--Who are these names, dad?
Father--People who died in Vietnam, son.
S--Why did they go there, dad?
F--Politicians sent them, son.
S--Is there a memorial for the politicans, dad?
F--Long as we have a memory, son.
S--Will there be another war, dad?
F--Hope not, son.
S--If so, will I be a veteran?
F--Next war won't have veterans, son.

Long as we have a memory, Cleo....long as we have a memory.
 
Well, until a similar monument is built to commemorate the victims of US Imperialism, Stalinist Tyranny and British Imperialism, this is simply unfair.
However, it is politically incorrect to disagree with the H-lobby.
 
I think they deserve it, it should be for all the victims of the Nazi death camps, not just the Jews, (which is what the article seems to be claiming, correct me if I am wrong), and Australia needs a similar memorial to the Aboriginals it has massacred. I can tell you right now, that won't be turning up for a few years yet.
 
Every nation has its shame. but how many have memorials to it?
 
Tmy said:
Every nation has its shame. but how many have memorials to it?
Click to expand...
Heh...ask my American Indian students about Columbus Day. "Celebrating 500 years of genocide and oppression..." (a sign posted a few years back)
 
demon said:
Well, until a similar monument is built to commemorate the victims of US Imperialism, Stalinist Tyranny and British Imperialism, this is simply unfair.
However, it is politically incorrect to disagree with the H-lobby.
Click to expand...

You can't have Imperialism with out an Empire. Further more, putting US in the same place Stalinist USSR is dishonest at best and most polite. However, I would expect nothing else from Hate-US-First-Lobby.
 
Tmy said:
Every nation has its shame. but how many have memorials to it?
Click to expand...

Precisely.

Which is why these memorials are such a threat to the deniers.

The memorials need to be there to commemorate AND to offend.
 
crimresearch said:
Precisely.

Which is why these memorials are such a threat to the deniers.

The memorials need to be there to commemorate AND to offend.
Click to expand...

We live in a town with a civil rights museum and a confederate park. We have those germans outdone bigtime.
 
I fully support the idea of that memorial in Berlin, and what Chaos said, that it is an ugly scar on the face of Berlin, then I think that this is exactly what it should be. It is an ugly scar which it shall remind us of. A "nice" memorial somewhere in the suburbs wouldn't do it, I guess.

The only criticism that is understandable, is the fact that this memorial is for the Jewish victims, only. The other groups, such as the Sinti and Roma, Gays, Jehovah's witnesses, do have or will get other memorials. But their main point of criticism is that they feel kind of "second class victims", that the groups of nazi victims get sort of separated and put into "hierarchies". That's understandable from their point of view, I think. Personally, I would have agreed that one memorial for all victims would have been a good alternative. That, however, was just as unlikely as a good decision in politics finding a reasonable consensus.
 
I'm not really against it, but I have a very cynical view when it comes to memorials. Memorials, often as not, are give-aways. It's a way for a government to throw a little bit of money at a group of people and say, "See? We care!" Easy placation.
 
Mycroft said:
I can't find a picture of the memorial.

My opinion is that like any public art project, it will be largely ignored once its built except by tourists.
Click to expand...
I'm with Mycroft on this one. It will also serve as a good target for vandalism by the typical misguided people you find everywhere.

Charlie (never forget, but don't persecute the children) Monoxide
 
Cleon said:
I'm not really against it, but I have a very cynical view when it comes to memorials. Memorials, often as not, are give-aways. It's a way for a government to throw a little bit of money at a group of people and say, "See? We care!" Easy placation.
Click to expand...

Very cynical indeed. But in the case of the memorial in question hardly justified. I would humbly like to claim that the way Germany has handled the memory of the third Reich is anything but a "placation".
For me, the memorial is simply the promise to the world that we will continue to deal with it as seriously as possible.
And as such it also serves (for me that is, I haven't actually seen it yet let alone discussed it with my compatriots) as a kind of seed crystal for a process where things start to turn from events of the near past into history. A process I regard as crucial for us to develop a "healthy" idea of patriotism, a concept that had no real place in the Germany of the past 60 years for quite obvious reasons.

Zee
 
ZeeGerman said:
Very cynical indeed. But in the case of the memorial in question hardly justified. I would humbly like to claim that the way Germany has handled the memory of the third Reich is anything but a "placation".
For me, the memorial is simply the promise to the world that we will continue to deal with it as seriously as possible.
And as such it also serves (for me that is, I haven't actually seen it yet let alone discussed it with my compatriots) as a kind of seed crystal for a process where things start to turn from events of the near past into history. A process I regard as crucial for us to develop a "healthy" idea of patriotism, a concept that had no real place in the Germany of the past 60 years for quite obvious reasons.
Click to expand...

It might be, it might not be. But more often than not memorials are shallow gestures or political games.
 
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