Holocaust Memorial and the Germans

It's one year since the Holocaust Memorial opened here. It's a favorite spot for tourists. Berliners are less inclined to go there. Someone wrote recently that the number of visitors is disappointingly small. I think 10,000 per day is pretty good, and, anyway, who cares. The whole point of the memorial is that it's there. There's nothing "to see" once you've been there. There should be no ceremonies there. No laying of wreaths. It's just a reminder - purposely in the background, purposely modest and simple.

Interestingly, major critics of the Memorial have come around to praising it. The Berliner Tagespiegel reports that ex-mayor Diepgen now says it was a great idea. The writer Martin Walser told Radio Vatican that his fear of creating some huge "monstrosity" in the center of the city has been avoided. He said Eisenman "is a genius....It's a real work of art. It is so impressive that anyone there can just engage with himself." (Sounds better in German: "Dass jeder da mit sich selber zu tun haben kann.")

Former head of the Academy of Art, who made a really big stink when the thing was being planned, has also decided it is a masterpiece.

The longer I live here, the more often I ride my bike past it, or even see it from a distance, the more I feel the memorial is something unique, maybe a model for memorials everywhere.

If only Americans had the good sense to have Eisenman do the World War II Memorial in Washington DC. We wouldn't be stuck with that ridiculous neo-Fascist concrete thing splattered across the mall.