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| Holocaust Memorial in Berlin attracts 3.5 million visitors
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A memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust in the centre of the German capital has attracted 3.5 million visitors in its first year of opening, according to figures released by Der Spiegel magazine.
While most visitors simply stroll through the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, a field of 2,700 grey concrete blocks situated near the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag parliament building, more than 500,000 people have also visited an information centre at the site.
Fears that the memorial, which is open to the public 24 hours a day, would be a target for vandals and neo-Nazi extremists have proved largely unfounded.
There have been just five cases of swastikas sprayed or scratched onto the blocks, the managers of the site told Der Spiegel.
Approximately 10,000 people visit the memorial, daily. There are no signs indicating what the site is and it is assumed that most people who go through it just happen upon it coincidentally – as it lies within walking distance on the way between two of the city’s main attractions, the Postdamer Platz and the Brandenburg Gate.
Many youngsters appear unaware of its significance.
Complex concern
Currently, the foundation that is responsible for the memorial is concerned about a complex that is being erected in order to house a souvenir stand, restaurant and toilets. The building, which is still being constructed, already towers above the site. Leah Rosh, initiator and director of the memorial, has called for the dismantling of the pavilion – calling it “indecent”.
The 115 meter long pavilion will open in May.
The pavilion is an idea that was initiated by the Borough of Mitte’s Green Party Urban Development Councillor, Dorothee Dubrau. She intended the construction of the temporary visitor centre to be a compromise – “a way to house, in an orderly fashion, the countless hotdog and souvenir stands that had been sprouting up around the perimeter of the site”
Dubrau argues that the pavilion is only a temporary construction that will be torn down in three years to make way for the building of an apartment complex.
Jakob Schulze-Rohr, member of the monument’s management board, told the Berliner Morgenpost newspaper that he found the construction “abstruse”. He said that one needs to consider the “moral aspect of the pavilion”.
Good call
The spokesman for the Christian Democratic Party’s cultural affairs office, Uwe Lehmann-Brauns, called for a “decent alternative”. And, Uwe Neumaerker, general manager of the memorial’s foundation told BM, that “such a construction is nevertheless better than roving hotdog stands”.
Some kind of visitor’s centre, especially during this summer’s FIFA world cup, will certainly be needed, according to the foundation which expects the site to be inundated by visitors.
Jutta Beckmann, a tourist from Hamburg, visiting the memorial, told EJP that she saw no need for food stalls or souvenir shops to border the site. “A public toilet is all that the site needs. Perhaps people should walk through it feeling a little hungry – a way to better remember the victims,” she said.
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