Berlin's Holocaust Memorial
(results of a search on Reader's Guide to Periodicals Abstracts)

Phillips, Christopher. "Go-Ahead for Berlin Holocaust Memorial?" Art in America, 87 #3 (March 1999): 29

ABSTRACT: The plan to build an enormous Holocaust memorial in central Berlin will go ahead, thanks to an unexpected compromise between supporters and opponents of the design by U.S. architect Peter Eisenman. Eisenman will add a multistory housing a library and a documentation center to his field of towering pillars, placating critics who found his original scheme too stylized and ahistorical.

Cohen, Roger. "Berlin Debates Spielberg Holocaust Video Offer." New York Times (Late New York Edition) (November 20,1998): A9

ABSTRACT: The Jewish Museum of Berlin, set to open in the year 2000, is considering whether to accept Steven Spielberg's offer to have 40,000 videotaped interviews with Holocaust survivors housed there. The interviews were compiled by Spielberg's Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation. Spielberg has said that while he believes Berlin should have a Holocaust memorial of some kind, what form it will take should be left entirely up to the German people.

---. "Schröoder Backs Design for a Vast Berlin Holocaust Memorial." New York Times (Late New York Edition) (January 18, 1999): A6

ABSTRACT: German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder has approved an accord on a memorial to commemorate the Holocaust in the new German capital, Berlin, but it still needs to be reviewed by Parliament. The proposed memorial is to include a vast field of stone pillars, a 65-foot-high wall of books, and a research center for scholars.

Cowell, Alan. "An Opponent of Kohl Puts Taboo Topic into Election" (M. Naumann opposes Berlin memorial to Holocaust). New York Times (Late New York Edition) (July 26, 1998): 13

ABSTRACT: (July 23) In the few days since publisher Michael Naumann was nominated as the opposition Social Democrats' cultural czar, he has sparked a fierce debate in Germany, just nine weeks before national elections. He has raised the possibility that if the Social Democrats topple Chancellor Helmut Kohl, they would abandon the plan to build a huge memorial to the Holocaust on the ruins of Hitler's Third Reich. The proposed memorial has been a divisive issue since it was conceived 10 years ago.

---. 'Berlin, Still the City of a Fateful Century.' New York Times (Late New York Edition) (May 24, 1998): 3 (Sec 4).

ABSTRACT: For much of the 20th century, Berlin has been at the epicenter of Europe's history. Now, as the German Government prepares to return to Berlin next year after four decades in Bonn, the city is again challenging outsiders to guess whether it will wreak evil or spread good. The debate over the design of a new Holocaust memorial in Berlin is discussed.

---. "Bleak debate in Berlin on a Holocaust Memorial." New York Times (Late New York Edition) (January 11, 1997): 4.

ABSTRACT: As the lingering controversy over a projected Holocaust memorial in Berlin illustrates, many Germans still cannot confront the killing of six million Jews by the Nazis without anguished debate over how they should relate to it. The debate has raised troubling questions about whether the memorial should commemorate only Jews or all victims of Nazi persecution and about whether it should be monumental in scale or a more modest place of reflection.

Goldhagen, Daniel. "There Is No Hierarchy Among Victims" (proposed memorial in Berlin for gay victims of nazism; op-ed). New York Times (Late New York Edition) (January 18, 1997): 23.

ABSTRACT: In Berlin, where a memorial to Jews killed in the Holocaust is being planned, there is debate over whether and how to recognize the gay victims of the Nazis. Tens of thousands of gay men were sent to concentration camps during the Nazi era, and perhaps 10,000 of them died. These gay victims deserve a memorial in Berlin that clearly tells the story of their persecution.

Greenblatt, Stephen J. "Ghosts of Berlin" (Holocaust Memorial; op-ed). New York Times (Late New York Edition) (April 28, 1999): p. A29

ABSTRACT: It has become increasingly apparent that no design for a Berlin memorial to remember the millions of Jews killed by Nazis in the Holocaust will ever prove adequate to the immense symbolic weight it must carry, as numerous designs have been considered and discarded. Perhaps the best course at this point would be to leave the site of the proposed memorial at the heart of Berlin and of Germany empty, to abandon it to weeds and, in Hamlet's words, to let things rank and gross in nature possess it merely.

Heilbrunn, Jacob. "Will Germany Deny the Past?" (opposition of G. Schröder and G. Naumann to Holocaust memorial; op-ed). New York Times (Late New York Edition) (September 19, 1998): A15

ABSTRACT: Gerhard Schroder, the Social Democrat who is favored to defeat German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, has taken the unfortunate step of denouncing Kohl's support for a Holocaust memorial in the center of Berlin. In so doing, Schroder has reckless politicized the Holocaust.

Kinzer, Stephen. "The War Memorial: to Embrace the Guilty, Too?" (protest against German war memorial in Berlin). New York Times (Late New York Edition) (November 15, 1993): A4.

ABSTRACT: Germany's national monument to victims of past conflicts, which was dedicated today in Berlin, was met with protest. The site, a former prison and a monument during the Nazi era; the statue, which portrays a mother grieving over a dead son; and the inscription, which reads "To the Victims of War and Tyranny," are each the subject of criticism. The critics say that the site is inappropriate, the statue fails to portray the horror that Germans inflicted on their fellow citizens and on foreigners, and the inscription fails to differentiate between victims and perpetrators.

Kramer, Jane. "The Politics of Memory" (L. Rosh's efforts to build a Holocaust memorial in Berlin). The New Yorker, 71 (August 14, 1995): 48-54.

ABSTRACT: The new trend in Germany's struggle to "manage" its history is to see itself as Nazism's victim. In the new past of choice, Germany was "seized" by Hitler in 1933 and "occupied" for twelve dark years before being "liberated" in 1945. The trend toward this view has many Germans worrying about the implications of building Berlin's Holocaust memorial. The article chronicles the plans to build the memorial, the idea for which was conceived by Berlin television talk-show hostess Lea Rosh; profiles Rosh and discusses other key figures' views on the memorial and German history; and describes some of the ideas proposed for the memorial.

Lind, Michael. "The Rise of Misguided Memorials." The New Leader, 81, #10 (September 7-21, 1998): 10-12.

ABSTRACT: It is horrifying that the German government is proposing to erect a monument to the victims of the Holocaust designed by American sculptor Richard Serra and American architect Peter Eisenman. These artists' contempt for humanity, which is in their previous work, is discernible in their design for the Berlin memorial: a monotonous field of looming, densely packed tombstone-like slabs. The main danger of using terrifying monuments to commemorate the Holocaust is that people will subconsciously start to associate the millions of Nazi victims with dreadful and oppressive imagery. The writer discusses a number of badly conceived memorials.

Morris, Nomi. "War and Memory." Maclean's, 110 (October 13, 1997): 36-.

ABSTRACT: Controversies over memorials and remembrance continually tear at Germany's conscience and have become a central part of the 1990s search for a new German identity. As the 1999 deadline nears for the Bonn government to relocate the capital to Berlin, this city has become the drawing board for attempts to reconstruct the image of a strong, united Germany. In recent years, over 100 east Berlin streets have been renamed to exclude communist heroes from their signs. Much of this revisionism relates to a simple wish to move on from communism as well as Nazism. There has also been debate on how to meet the need for a central memorial to Jewish victims of the Holocaust. The two final choices drawn from a competition to decide upon the design of a suitable structure were deemed too grandiose by German chancellor Helmut Kohl. In addition, Gypsy and homosexual leaders have been asking why Holocaust victims from their groups were not included.

Schnock, Frieder and Renata Stih. "Berlin's Silent Monuments" (design competition for a memorial to victims of the Holocaust). Trans. Pauline Bax. Harper's, 292 (April 1996): 31-2.

ABSTRACT: An excerpt from a guidebook created by two Berlin artists as part of Bus Stop, their entry in a design competition, sponsored by the German government, for a memorial to Jewish victims of the Holocaust. The artists proposed that a bus terminal be constructed in Berlin from which red buses would depart each hour, taking people to hundreds of sites related to the Holocaust in Berlin, the rest of Germany, and Poland. A selection of the Berlin sites are listed.

Stein, Laurie A. "Capital Venture." Art News, 97, #6 (June 1998): 54.

ABSTRACT: The overwhelming change taking place in Berlin, Germany, is accompanied by a tension between past, present, and future. The deep changes in the city's architectural landscape are mirrored by the shifting cultural landscape, as many established institutions undergo major building and renovation programs. Several such programs are examined, and controversies over matters such as a proposed Holocaust Memorial and the Jewish Museum are discussed.