Holocaust Memorial, Berlin, Germany

The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, also known as the Holocaust Memorial is dedicated to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, designed by architect Peter Eisenman and engineer Buro Happold. It consists of a 19,000 m2 site covered with 2,711 concrete slabs arranged in a grid pattern on a sloping field. They are organized in rows, 54 of them going north-south, and 87 heading east-west at right angles but set slightly askew. An attached underground 'Place of Information' holds the names of all known Jewish Holocaust victims, obtained from the Israeli museum Yad Vashem.

Building began on April 1, 2003 and was finished on December 15, 2004. It was inaugurated on May 10, 2005, sixty years after the end of World War II, and opened to the public two days later.

References:

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User Reviews

Adam Lucy (16 months ago)
It felt strange to give a star rating to something so poignant. The memorial is very thought provoking. The deeper you move into its centre, the higher the concrete blocks become, blocking out view and sound. Until you are surrounded by massive tomb stone structures, towering above your head. I experienced a deep period of introspection while at this monument. My mind attempted to comprehend the horrors perpetrated on the Jews and others and to experience in silence the strangely peaceful atmosphere of the monument itself. It was a profound experience and one I undertook with humble respect and a conscious appreciation of the significance of this memorial. Those that do not learn from history, are destined to repeat it.

Mark James (16 months ago)
Wasn't impressed. On ground level it's a load of different sized blocks of concrete. Underneath there's a very average history lesson with exhibits and video/sound. Definitely get the audio guide. I would have liked to have seen something beautiful and impressive. This is depressing concrete.

Helen (16 months ago)
You should visit here!! U can feel real experience of Jewish by writings and many documents. At a short time you can learn how the Third Reich of Deutschland had strong effects over all the European countries and how many people and nations are related to it. History is not to be forgotten and we should definitively know it exactly.

Wing Ying Chow (17 months ago)
It is hard to express how astounding it is to walk in this memorial and photos do not do justice. From afar, it looks like piles of coffins or bodies, but the feeling almost lessens as you walk up and walk in. Then the regular concrete blocks, first innocuous, creep over and become suddenly taller, and it becomes ominous, repressive, and dark. A place to reflect on how rights of a group of humans can be stripped away, step by step, and how it can easily happen again if we do not take the lessons of the past. The exhibition is very worthwhile for understanding both the overreaching historical setting as well as more personal entries and the damage to families.

Corissa George (17 months ago)
Absolutely phenomenal. A crazy mood altering experience. So well done. It has a massive impact on the mind & heart. Definitely have to experience it. As I left, I spotted a beautiful bright red lady bug (featured in the picture attached) in a crack that brought peace to my heart & mind. Emotional roller coaster!

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Photo from Flickr, copyright Polybert49

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Cochem Castle

The original Cochem Castle, perched prominently on a hill above the Moselle River, served to collect tolls from passing ships. Modern research dates its origins to around 1100. Before its destruction by the French in 1689, the castle had a long and fascinating history. It changed hands numerous times and, like most castles, also changed its form over the centuries.

In 1151 King Konrad III ended a dispute over who should inherit Cochem Castle by laying siege to it and taking possession of it himself. That same year it became an official Imperial Castle (Reichsburg) subject to imperial authority. In 1282 it was Habsburg King Rudolf’s turn, when he conquered the Reichsburg Cochem and took it over. But just 12 years later, in 1294, the newest owner, King Adolf of Nassau pawned the castle, the town of Cochem and the surrounding region in order to finance his coronation. Adolf’s successor, Albrecht I, was unable to redeem the pledge and was forced to grant the castle to the archbishop in nearby Trier and the Electorate of Trier, which then administered the Reichsburg continuously, except for a brief interruption when Trier’s Archbishop Balduin of Luxembourg had to pawn the castle to a countess. But he got it back a year later.

The Electorate of Trier and its nobility became wealthy and powerful in large part due to the income from Cochem Castle and the rights to shipping tolls on the Moselle. Not until 1419 did the castle and its tolls come under the administration of civil bailiffs (Amtsmänner). While under the control of the bishops and electors in Trier from the 14th to the 16th century, the castle was expanded several times.

In 1688 the French invaded the Rhine and Moselle regions of the Palatinate, which included Cochem and its castle. French troops conquered the Reichsburg and then laid waste not only to the castle but also to Cochem and most of the other surrounding towns in a scorched-earth campaign. Between that time and the Congress of Vienna, the Palatinate and Cochem went back and forth between France and Prussia. In 1815 the western Palatinate and Cochem finally became part of Prussia once and for all.

Louis Jacques Ravené (1823-1879) did not live to see the completion of his renovated castle, but it was completed by his son Louis Auguste Ravené (1866-1944). Louis Auguste was only two years old when construction work at the old ruins above Cochem began in 1868, but most of the new castle took shape from 1874 to 1877, based on designs by Berlin architects. After the death of his father in 1879, Louis Auguste supervised the final stages of construction, mostly involving work on the castle’s interior. The castle was finally completed in 1890. Louis Auguste, like his father, a lover of art, filled the castle with an extensive art collection, most of which was lost during the Second World War.

In 1942, during the Nazi years, Ravené was forced to sell the family castle to the Prussian Ministry of Justice, which turned it into a law school run by the Nazi government. Following the end of the war, the castle became the property of the new state of Rheinland-Pfalz (Rhineland-Palatinate). In 1978 the city of Cochem bought the castle for 664,000 marks.

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