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Cora-Berliner-Strasse 1 Berlin
More than 2,700 concrete slabs filling a space the size of four football fields make up this visually profound and sobering memorial. Designed by architect Peter Eisenman and located at the edge of the Tiergarten, the monument is built on a sloping ground, so as you walk around the differently sized slabs of gray, you may feel slightly seasick, surely a purposeful design choice.
The concrete slabs grow taller, the deeper you penetrate, eventually filtering out sound and sunlight. As you navigate the maze, you occasionally catch sight of other visitors in an eerie game of now-you-see-them, now-you-don’t. It’s as though everyone who enters transforms into ghosts. The monument is particularly moving at sunrise and at dusk, when the light reflects on the smooth gray slabs.
Another interesting place to visit here is the Gay Holocaust Memorial across the street in the Tiergarten. It was unveiled in 2008 and features a continuously looping film of two men kissing projected inside a gray stone slab.
Written by Simone Girner