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berlin’s holocaust memorial

opened in 2005 after years of disagreements, the ‘monument to the murdered jews of europe’ is a stunning sea of concrete blocks situated in the heart of berlin.

the memorial was designed by american architect peter eisenman and each of the 2711 stones, all without plaques or inscriptions, is unique in size, the design intended to ‘represent a supposedly ordered system that has lost touch with human reason’.

in order to deter graffiti artists at the site, each of the stones is treated with an anti-graffiti agent, manufactured by a company called degussa. unfortunately in 2003 it was revealed that one of the company’s subsidiaries had been responsible for producing the poison gas used in nazi death camps. this didn’t exactly go down well with the public.

controversy aside, the memorial looks incredible and certainly educates a huge number of people on a daily basis: underneath the visible area is an information centre dedicated to the holocaust, in the first year alone nearly 500′000 people entered.

here’s the direct link to the memorial on google maps

a short video about the memorial…

an old bbc news article about the monument is here.

the memorial’s home on the intertubes can be found electronically through this link.

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