Yesterday was Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, observed in places as far flung as Jerusalem (with wailing sirens), Farmington Hills, Mich., (with motorcycle riders) and Los Angeles (with children).
On Tuesday of next week, as part of the 60th anniversary celebration of the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, the long-awaited Berlin Holocaust memorial (left) is scheduled to open. But anyone who believes it will be as grim as a cemetary because its 2,711 gray pillars resemble grave stones, or thinks it will be off limits to picnickers, skateboarders, games of hide-and-seek and even vandals, hasn’t listened to the American-born architect who designed it.
“I think kids will play tag. I think people will eat their lunch on the pillars,” Peter Eisenman told Reuters. “I’m sure skateboarders will use it. People will dance on the top of the pillars. All kinds of unexpected things are going to happen.”
“There will be people who attempt to deface it but that’s an expression of the people,” he added.
Controversy has dogged the memorial from the beginning. For instance, a billboard (left) suggesting why people should give money for construction of a document center beneath the memorial, caused so much outrage that it had to be taken down. (The large slogan reads, “The Holocaust never happened.” The small type reads: “There are still some who say that. In 20 years, there may be even more. This is why you should give to the memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe.”)
The memorial, facing the site where a new U.S. embassy is being built, is located near Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate and is a city block in size. It will be open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
“I would like to think it doesn’t close off discussion but opens discussion, on issues of anti-Semitism, the Nazi regime and the role of the German people,” Eisenman told Reuters. “I see it as a catalyst because of feelings it generates.” He added:
A lot of people, especially in Jewish communities, asked what it has to do with the Holocaust. There are no stars, no names. But we didn’t want that. A little kid will go in and play hide and seek until he gets lost and starts to scream. You can’t stop anyone from doing anything and that was part of the message.
Except for one thing: Eisenman says he wants no Bratwurst stand anywhere near the memorial. According to Deutsche Welle, “commercialization of and profiting from the suffering of the Holocaust is something he adamantly rejects.”
Tonight, meanwhile, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel and other Holocaust survivors are scheduled to talk about their experiences in a pre-recorded conversation to be aired on WNYC at 7 p.m. ET (AM 820 in New York). The conversation, entitled “Never Again! A Holocaust Memorial,” is already posted on Only in America.
Finally, Laura Bush attended the National Commemoration of the Days of Remembrance in the Capitol’s Rotunda yesterday. According to The Washington Post, she told Holocaust survivors and their liberators in the crowd there: “Your presence is evidence that good will always triumph
over evil.”
Well, not if you do the math, Laura. Of course, it’s not just a matter of the six million who died vs. the tiny fraction of that number who survived. Listen to Elie Wiesel tonight. He’ll tell you why he doesn’t believe such foolish wisdom either.
