Holocaust Archives | Page 2 of 4 | World Jewish Travel

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe (Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas)is located on Cora-Berliner-Straße. Designed by Peter Eisenman, it features 2,711 concrete slabs arranged in a grid-like formation. Each slab is several meters long and 3 feet wide. Adjacent to the memorial is an information center, which contains a timeline of the Final Solution, as well as the names of millions of victims of the holocaust. There’s also a visitors center, which displays many important moments and memories from the Holocaust. The memorial was opened in May 2005.

The debates over whether to have such a memorial and what form it should take extend back to the late 1980s, when a small group of private German citizens, led by television journalist Lea Rosh and historian Eberhard Jäckel, first began pressing for Germany to honor the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust. Rosh soon emerged as the driving force behind the memorial. In 1989, she founded a group to support its construction and to collect donations. With growing support, the Bundestag (German federal parliament) passed a resolution in favour of the project. On 25 June 1999, the Bundestag decided to build the memorial designed by Peter Eisenman. A federal foundation (Foundation for the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe) was consequently founded to run it.

Three years after the official opening of the memorial, half of the blocks made from compacting concrete started to crack. While some interpret this defect as an intentional symbolization of the immortality and durability of the Jewish community, the memorials’ foundation deny this. Some analyze the lack of individual names on the monument as an illustration of the unimaginable number of murdered Jews in the Holocaust. In this way, the memorial illustrates that the number of Jewish individuals murdered in the Holocaust was so colossal that is impossible to physically visualize

Stolpersteine (the “Stumbling Stone”)

The Stolpersteine (stumbling stone) is an art project inspired by Gunter Demnig. The concept is to install commemorative brass plaques in the pavement in front of the homes of known holocaust victims. The plaque records who lived at the address and that they were a victim of the Nazi regime. The very first stolperstein was set on 16 December 1992 in front of the Cologne City Hall. Currently, there are tens of thousands of “Stolpersteines” across Europe. In Berlin, there are many such stones, including a famous one located at Togostraße 25O, which is open daily for public viewing.

Image attribution:
Gmbo 2013, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Geolina163, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Liban Querry

As an unmaintained site, the quarry is rather overgrown with nature and has become somewhat of a sanctuary for several types of bird such as waterfowl and pheasants, among other critters. The rusted refinery lies surrounded by steep limestone cliffs, covered with a thick forest of pines. The original fence posts and barbed wire can still be found hidden within the shrubbery that surrounds the quarry. There is a slightly eerie feel to the quarry, given its lack of use and derelict state, but it hosts a wealth of history nonetheless.

Established by two Jewish industrial families from Podgórze in 1873, the quarry was connected to a railway line for easy transportation of materials. The quarry was active until the Nazi occupation, where it was then used as a labor camp for young Polish prisoners from 1942 until 1944. When the camp was liquidated near the end of the war, 21 inmates were executed and a small, overgrown memorial lies on the cliffside towards Za Torem. Although it is quite possible to find and explore the Liban Quarry on your own, a guide can provide an enhanced visit and a deeper insight into the history and nature of this unique site.

Image attribution:
Mateusz Giełczyński, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Oskar Schindler’s Factory Museum

While the metal items factory was originally established by three Jewish entrepreneurs, the company changed ownership many times before filing for bankruptcy in 1939. Oskar Schindler took over the factory and used the premise during World War II to produce enamelware and later ammunition shells – the latter of which was in order to prove the factory’s value to the Nazi Party.

By doing this, Oskar Schindler was able to hire over 1,000 Jews and keep them employed throughout the Nazi occupation. When the Germans started losing the war, he went as far as bribing SS officials to prevent the execution of his Jewish employees by relocating them with his factory to a safer location in Brünnlitz. The SS official, Amon Goth’s secretary compiled the list of 1,200 Jews who were relocated thanks to Schindler’s efforts – thus giving the inspiration for Stephen Spielberg’s multi-award winning Schindler’s List.

Oskar Schindler died on October 9th, 1974 and was the only member of the Nazi Party be buried on Mount Zion in Jerusalem. In 1993, the Israeli government named Schindler and his wife, Emilie, were named Righteous Among the Nations. See remnants of Oskar Schindler’s heroic deeds in person during a memorable visit to the Oskar Schindler Factory.

Hyde Park Holocaust Memorial

The Hyde Park Holocaust Memorial represents Britain’s first testimonial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust. The Board of British Jews paid for its construction in 1983. Richard Seifert, Mark Badger, and Derek Lovejoy and Partners designed the monument which consists of a garden of boulders in raked gravel shaded by white-stemmed birch trees. The memorial sits east of The Dell just past the dam. Observers will notice an inscription from the Book of Lamentations on the largest stone which reads: “For these, I weep. Streams of tears flow from my eyes because of the destruction of my people.”

Hyde Park houses Britain’s first memorial in honor of the 6 million Jews murdered in the Holocaust. Thirty eight years after the end of the Second World War in 1983, the Board of Deputies of British Jews organized the design and construction of Britain’s first Holocaust memorial. It serves as a sobering reminder to pass the memory of the 6 million lives lost on to the next generation. On Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Memorial Day) 2018 over 1,200 people gathered at the memorial to mourn the lives lost, to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, and the 73rd anniversary of the British Army’s liberation of Bergen-Belsen. Some of the key attendees on this significant day included not only the survivors of the atrocity, but also Israeli Ambassador, Mark Regev, and the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan.

Photo attribution: Mx. Granger, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Holocaust Memorial & Dutch Theater

The Hollandic Theatre (Hollandsche Schouwburg) was built in 1892. It originally serves as a center for the arts, and today it is a Holocaust memorial museum. Although it was built to be a Dutch theatre, the Nazis regarded it as a Jewish structure. In 1941 it was used as an assembly point for Jews being sent to the Westerbork transit camp. Today, the building is used as a memorial site for Dutch Jews who perished in the Holocaust. The museum features a wall with the names of the 104,000 Jews that were exterminated. The museum provides visual and audio demonstrations of the building’s original art house prior to the WWII, as well as a permanent exhibition – Persecution of the Jews 1940-1945.

State Museum of Burgenland

The Sándor Wolf Memorial Room is located in this museum and was established in honour of Sándor Wolf, who is considered to be the founding father of the State Museum of Burgenland. Lore Lizbeth Waller was a grandniece of Sándor Wolf. She talks about her summer stays in this house at the video channel of the Research Society Burgenland (http://www.forschungsgesellschaft.at/interviews/eisenstadt.html).

Eisenstadt Jewish Quarter

The first evidence of the presence of Jews in Eisenstadt was found as early as the 13th century. In this settlement, according to documents from the 16th century, there was already a prayer house, a ritual bath and a cemetery. Visible remains have not been preserved.

Plaques Commemorating the Este Castle Massacre

There are four plaques along the low moat wall surrounding the Este’s Castle placed in memory of the massacre that took place on November the 15th, 1943. Eleven people selected among Jews and political opponents held in the jail via Piangipane were brutally murdered in retaliation for the assassination of the Fascist Federal, a member of the party re-established after the of 8th of September armistice. Eight of them were slaughtered near the Castle and two on the San Tommaso Bastion, where a memorial stone commemorates them. An eleventh victim, probably a witness trying to flee, was murdered in Via Boldini not far from the Castle. Their bodies were left there till the following morning as a warning.
After the war, the street was renamed Corso Martiri della Libertà when the plaques were put in place. In his short story “Una notte del ’43” (A Night in 1943), the writer Giorgio Bassani wrote about the Corso Roma massacre through the eyes of a pharmacist living opposite.

Upper Town Synagogue

The former main Osijek synagogue in the city centre, robbed and set on fire in April 1941. Its remnants were completely removed in 1953 and a residential building was constructed there. There is only a memorial plaque in this place now.

Site Tag: Holocaust