I toured this memorial right after I saw the WWII bunker with the Boros Collection, which was a fitting juxtaposition, but I felt this visit deserved its own post out of respect for the gravity of the subject matter.
Above is a short video I took of walking quietly through the memorial.
When you walk into the Memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe, you quickly realize how deep it gets. The initially waist-high steles get taller and taller as you walk down the declining pathways, until they dwarf you and make you feel trapped in the canyons they create. You can hear other people’s foot steps, but you can not see them until they bump into you at a corner. This results in a feeling of uncertainty and vigilance and even a bit of fear. If someone were to attack you in one of these canyons, nobody might see it.
I enter the Memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe. On this dark, rainy day this stark site is amplified even more.
The bright bus shelter ad with the image of a young man glowed saviour-like into the deep canyon I was in. What you see here is the result of my really long zoom — this poster was really much further away than it appears here, and many more steles were between it and me.
Looking out of the Memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe, you see a bright Star of David and a chunk of the Brandenburg Gate.
