Berlin holocaust memorial and Degussa

http://www.construction.com/NewsCenter/Headlines/ENR/20031124o.asp

Nov 24 2003

Work recently resumed on Germany’s $32.5-million Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, after a supplier was suspended over its World War II role in the holocaust. More than 30 of the planned 2,751 abstract, concrete monoliths have been placed in Berlin since field installation began in late September.

Earlier it was reported by foundation board member Lea Rosh that contracting Degussa could offend many Holocaust survivors, since the company’s former subsidiary Degesch supplied "Zyklon B" hydrogen cyanide gas pellets to Nazi concentration camps.

Designed by U.S. architect Peter Eisenman the memorial will consist of a maze of 2,700 large concrete pillars and is being build close to the city’s landmark Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag parliament building.

 

Peter Eisenman, the architect of Berlin’s Holocaust memorial, caused a stir recently when he told a meeting of the memorial’s board of trustees that his New York dentist, after putting a gold filling in his teeth, “said he had just put a Degussa product in my tooth, and asked if he should take it out again.”

Eisenman, who is Jewish, said he told the story to lighten up the meeting, and didn’t mention Holocaust victims.

Eisenman offered a verbal apology this week. He also told the Berliner Morgenpost newspaper, “If necessary, I will ask personally for forgiveness again. I did not want to hurt anyone’s feelings or snub them. I am sorry. I did not intend that.”


http://www.ncsj.org/AuxPages/030904NYDN_Riefenstahl.shtml

 

IMO this memorial is the ugliest I've ever seen. The whole area around the Bundestag is now a lot less attractive. It would have been much better and sufficient to place a single statue. Why don't get the millions of other victims of WW2 such a big memorial?

[ 04. February 2005, 01:57 PM: Message edited by: Stauffenberg ]

 

Anybody visited the place yet?

 

I was in Berlin in March. At this time the memorial was still not open for public, but I looked at it through the fence. My opinion didn't change. It's ugly!