Holocaust Memorial Day
Yesterday, 27th January, various countries celebrated Holocaust Memorial Day, which is dedicated to remembering the victims of the Holocaust.
27th January was chosen as it was the date on which Auschwitz was liberated in 1945. The concentration camp is not currently covered by high resolution imagery but you can see archive aerial shots as Google Earth overlays.
In 2004 the monument to the murdered Jews of Europe was established in the centre of Berlin. The monument is over 19,000 m2, the entirety of which is covered with 2,711 concrete slabs of various heights. Between the slabs the ground slopes about unevenly, and there is no predefined path through the monument.
An underground museum below the monument holds the names of all known Jewish Holocaust victims and a quote above the entrance reads:
“It happened, therefore it can happen again: this is the core of what we have to say”.
Further information on the monument on Sacred Destinations.
Thanks: Chris Westbrook, Stephan Gajewski, Leon el africano and David Boardman
Even though it has cost 14 million Euro and took 17 years of planning, the concrete blocks that monument is made of, are already showing cracks - unlike some structures built during ww2, some of which the allied forces even tried to demolish unsuccessfully.
I guess the best thing about it is that it’s too large to ignore it.
We should never forget what happened, and never allow ourselves to blindly follow one man (or a book, or an ideology…)
Other concentration camps than Auschwitz are visible in higher resolution imagery, such as camp Buchenwald (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buchenwald) near Weimar: Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth People from Weimar were forced to visit the camp after its liberation so that they would later not deny any of the things that had happened there.
Another concentration camp that has decent imagery is Theresienstadt (now Terezin in the Czech Republic): Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth
This is the camp that was cleaned up for propaganda purposes (including a Red Cross inspection), including fake bathroom without water connections.
If you want to know, whether people knew what was going on, I also suggest to take a look at Sachsenhausen, which isn’t situated on top of some mountain, but very very close to the city of Oranienburg. Close like… 100m: Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth
We have a couple of ground-level photos of the memorial on our photo-blog entry about our trip to Berlin.
A half mile navigation around this site is fascinating - there is so much interesting modern architecture.. I have to admit I’ve never been to Berin and get tired of hearing so many times how wonderful it is, but I may have to rethink that one.
Ben: I risk tiring you a bit more
- Yes, for the architecturally interested, Berlin is absolutely worth a visit.
I’m a converted sceptic: The memorial site is a great design. A couple of steps in and the city is gone and one is pretty much alone with one’s thoughts.
Its interesting that Isreal does nothing while thousands are slaughtered in Africa every day. It IS happening again.
It should be mentioned, that ONLY the concrete construction (that now begins to disintegrate) hast cost 14 million Euros, while the whole project (officially) took about 27.6 million Euros.
My tax Euros at work…