I think Berlin has more memorials than any city I have ever been to.
And with good reason. Not only did Berlin play a huge role in WWII,but it also survived Communism. One of the more poignant memorials in the city that I visited was the
Jewish Memorial. A collection of gray cement slabs in the middle of
the city, this memorial starts flush with the ground, and grows to be
around 10-15 feet tall in the middle, with a ground that drops away as
you walk toward the center. Just describing it, I realize it sounds
sort of odd, but walking through it is really quite an experience. Symbolically, this memorial could mean a lot of things. The fact that
the blocks grow as you walk toward the center could represent how antisemitism starts off as little things, like negative thoughts and
if left unchecked, grows into violence. This interpretation spoke to
me because in the center of the memorial you really feel like you are
just surrounded by these tall gray blocks, as if you are just
outnumbered and so small. Perhaps the way the Jews felt as they were
surrounded on all sides by death and pain and suffering. Another more literal way I thought about it was that the gray stones
represented graves. And as you walk to the middle, the numbers just
begin to stack up. They're all unmarked blocks, which could symbolize
the many unmarked graves of Jews that stacked up through Hitler's
reign of terror. This was an equally overwhelming and sobering thought
as I walked through. On the other hand, I heard a couple of people talking as I sat on one
of the blocks near the edges, and one of them thought the memorial
suggested the idea of hope, because no matter how much you feel
consumed by the gray blocks, you can still see the exits. I felt like
that was a slightly Pollyanna way of looking at the memorial, but when
things are so bad, maybe all you can do is cling to hope. I was told the architect didn't reveal any of his intentions as he
built the memorial, so I suppose all explanations are equally valid.
Either way, I continue to be surprised by the overwhelming emotion I
feel when faced with the realities of the Holocaust. In the States,
you never really come face-to-face with it. I mean, we read books on the subject in middle school, and talk about
the implications - I think I even had a Holocaust survivor come to my
classroom one year. But there's something about being where it
actually happened that makes it seem much more real. Berlin is a big center of Holocaust memorabilia and memorials, and
besides seeing this particular memorial and going to the Jewish Museum
I know I mentioned that I might go to the concentration camp nearby,
but I decided against it. I was honestly surprised by how sick I felt
just from visiting the museum and memorial. Like, sick to my stomach,
tearing up, upset for a couple hours after. I didn't expect that
reaction, and I honestly didn't think I could handle seeing the actual
camp where thousands of people were murdered in terrible ways. The
atrocities that happened - there really are no words that describe it.
There is no way to really wrap your head around it. And being alone
out here, having to process it alone, I just didn't think I could
handle it. It's really really crazy that there are some things that are just so
unimaginable to our human psyche that we just shut down, and can't
process them. Maybe I will be back some day, and be ready to accept
it, but I am not sure.
