Stone graves as far as the eye can see

After my visit to Auschwitz the week prior, I was intrigued to see how Germany was discussing and remembering the Holocaust. We headed to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe to find out more. It was quite an experience.

The memorial itself takes up an entire large city square. It is composed of 2,711 sarcophagi, large rectangular concrete stones rising straight up from the ground. Interestingly, these start short, only a foot or two in height. But then, as we walked into the memorial, the ground descends, undulating across the square. Soon, I was in a maze of these sarcophagi.

At one point, they were over 4 meters high. It becomes imposing, overwhelming, and disconcerting. Exactly the point, I think. It was a bare and very interesting memorial, effective at communicating the core message of massive loss.

Underground, in the same space, was an information center and museum that provided more information as to what occurred. It was an emotional experience to walk through the several rooms of the museum, which tried, in different ways, to convey the horror, the breadth, and the loss to so many people, so many families, so many communities all across Europe.

One moving room had quotes from Jewish journals and letters emblazoned on the ground. The illuminated panels mirrored the sarcophagi above. The quotes brought to the fore a first-hand experience of the trauma. Another simple yet incredibly powerful room had a bare space. On each of the four walls, a name would be projected in large type. A narrator would share the story of that person's life and their persecution at the hand of the Nazis, including information on when and how they were murdered. All I could do was sit quietly, feeling the extreme awfulness of it all.

The memorial, in total, was incredibly well done. Interestingly, it was also very recent, having only been created in 2003. I wonder what, if anything, was in place in the years prior to that.