Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

[DanK]

The Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas in Berlin, across from the American embassy and a few blocks from the Brandenburg gate.

This is another thing that I found very hard to photograph. There are undulating walkways between the pillars, but none of the shots I have processed from there are worth posting.

This is also something I took with my Lumix LX-100. I was there for a short visit because of a meeting and didn't want to lug my gear. I carried the LX-100 around in a fanny pack, with room for a map and a book.

C&C welcome, of course.

[rpcrowe]

Very stark and rightfully so. Good job!

The Holocaust also involved Roma (Gypsies) and it appears that at least one quarter of the Gypsies living in Europe were killed...

[Shadowman]

Nice composition.

[IzzieK]

Stark and cold, that is what I feel when I see this kind of image. Good composition.

[gregj1763]

Great image, very sad

[davidedric]

My late father in law was a Polish Jew from Warsaw. When Hitler invaded in 1939, he was on a fishing boat in the North Sea. They received a radio message saying if the were any Jews aboard, they should not come home and he was landed in Scotland. He was interned for a while, learnt English, and later joined one of the Polish regiments.

He never saw any of his family again, and could find no trace. Whether they died in the ghetto or in the death camps, it is impossible to say, but perish they certainly did.

When his first child arrived, the lady who is now my wife, he named her Margalit - after his mother and of course her grandmother, so in a way it lives with us every day. Not that we dwell on it, of course, but a few year's ago we visited Warsaw and Auschwitz, and you can probably imagine it was a very emotional experience.

[george013]

My late father in law was a Polish Jew from Warsaw. When Hitler invaded in 1939, he was on a fishing boat in the North Sea. They received a radio message saying if the were any Jews aboard, they should not come home and he was landed in Scotland. He was interned for a while, learnt English, and later joined one of the Polish regiments.

He never saw any of his family again, and could find no trace. Whether they died in the ghetto or in the death camps, it is impossible to say, but perish they certainly did.

When his first child arrived, the lady who is now my wife, he named her Margalit - after his mother and of course her grandmother, so in a way it lives with us every day. Not that we dwell on it, of course, but a few year's ago we visited Warsaw and Auschwitz, and you can probably imagine it was a very emotional experience.

A Jewish expression. As long they talk about you, you aren't dead.

George

[DanK]

Dave, unfortunately, a great many Jewish families from Europe have similar histories. Almost everyone in Europe in both my family and my wife's was murdered. If no one in my mother-in-law's family had been murdered, and if each of her siblings had had two children, they would have had 28 survivors two generations later. They had two--my kids, who owe their existence to her getting out of Slovakia in 1938. Naming children after relatives who have passed away is an old Jewish tradition that goes back much farther.

The Germans have done a great deal to confront this history head-on and have constructed many museums and memorials to the holocaust. I know of four in Berlin alone: this one, a large Jewish museum, a museum documenting the rise of Nazi terror, and a smaller museum at the villa on the Wannsee where the Wannsee Conference, which settled the administrative arrangements for the final solution, was held in 1942.

There are also many small plaques commemorating individuals who were murdered. The one below, which is on a wall Berlin, commemorates a relative of an Israeli friend of mine, a prominent German expressionist poet. The part under his name reads: "Co-founder of the expressionist New Club on August 11 1909 in the Hackeschen courts, deported and murdered by the National Socialists in April 1942." Ironically, the text in quotes at the top, which I assume is taken from one of his poems, refers to picking roses at the Wannsee.

Even with all of that, some Germans I know feel that many of today's youth don't fully grasp what happened.

On a less somber note, anyone have suggestions about PP or composition?

Dan

[george013]

Dave, unfortunately, a great many Jewish families from Europe have similar histories. Almost everyone in Europe in both my family and my wife's was murdered. If no one in my mother-in-law's family had been murdered, and if each of her siblings had had two children, they would have had 28 survivors two generations later. They had two--my kids, who owe their existence to her getting out of Slovakia in 1938. Naming children after relatives who have passed away is an old Jewish tradition that goes back much farther.

The Germans have done a great deal to confront this history head-on and have constructed many museums and memorials to the holocaust. I know of four in Berlin alone: this one, a large Jewish museum, a museum documenting the rise of Nazi terror, and a smaller museum at the villa on the Wannsee where the Wannsee Conference, which settled the administrative arrangements for the final solution, was held in 1942.

There are also many small plaques commemorating individuals who were murdered. The one below, which is on a wall Berlin, commemorates a relative of an Israeli friend of mine, a prominent German expressionist poet. The part under his name reads: "Co-founder of the expressionist New Club on August 11 1909 in the Hackeschen courts, deported and murdered by the National Socialists in April 1942." Ironically, the text in quotes at the top, which I assume is taken from one of his poems, refers to picking roses at the Wannsee.

Even with all of that, some Germans I know feel that many of today's youth don't fully grasp what happened.

On a less somber note, anyone have suggestions about PP or composition?

Dan

"Ich habe am Wannsee Rosen gepflückt, und weiß nicht, wem ich sie schenken soll."

I've picked roses at the Wannsee, but I don't know to whome to give them.

From what I read not from a poem but a phrase he often used when he was in a mental hospital.

The concentration camps where also populated with homosexuals. Interesting is how they where treated after the war. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_triangle.

After the camps were liberated at the end of the Second World War, many of the pink triangle prisoners were often simply re-imprisoned by the Allied-established Federal Republic of Germany.[citation needed] An openly gay man named Heinz Dörmer, for instance, served 20 years total, first in a Nazi concentration camp and then in the jails of the new Republic. In fact, the Nazi amendments to Paragraph 175, which turned homosexuality from a minor offense into a felony, remained intact in both East and West Germany after the war for a further 24 years. While suits seeking monetary compensation have failed, in 2002 the German government issued an official apology to the gay community.[7]

George

[James G]

On a less somber note, anyone have suggestions about PP or composition?

Dan, I think you have captured the 1st image perfectly. Given the subject matter, a closer crop would have looked more like 'Op Art' I think. A wider panorama would have had less impact I suspect in conveying the nature of the site. The monotone treatment also works well for me. I think, had I not read the text, I would still have picked up on the mood of this image.

As regards the second shot, I think the fact you chose not to correct perspective works well, making the memorial plaque 'real'. The lighting and texture of the surface is very subtle and works for me.

And for the more 'sombre' nature of the thread, I can only say that we still need to keep remembering and learning from these histories.