REMEMBERING THE SHOAH IN BERLIN
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
The memorial to the Homosexuals Persecuted under the National Socialist Regime is a monument situated in Tiergarten to honour the homosexuals murdered and persecuted during the Shoah. It has been erected as a reminder of the injustice and is a potent symbol against intolerance, resentment and the exclusion of gay men and women during the Nazi period.
The homosexual victims of the National Socialist persecution were not included in public commemorations for many years, even after other Holocaust memorials were erected. Because of this history, there is an extra responsibility to ensure that the intolerance of homosexuals is harshly opposed. The installation aims to raise the profile of the gay community and recognise the importance of integration and acceptance. The capacity of the memorial is to serve as a site where groups can take ownership of the commemorative process and utilise it as part of a larger task of addressing struggles with identity.
The memorial was designed by the artists Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset. It is comprised of a large concrete cuboid created in a similar form to the pillars in the Memorial to the Murdered Jewish of Europe.There is a small square peephole in the structure in which viewers can watch a 90 second same-sex kissing video on an endless loop at one end of the monument, every two years the video rotates between two men kissing to two women kissing to remember both gay and lesbian victims in the Shoah.
Elmgreen and Dragset interpret monuments to be ingrained with the character of a living organism, subjected to dynamic change instead of holding a static and final statement. The artists adapted the monument’s surroundings with their aesthetic conceptualisation, they adopted the same form for their sculptural rendition of the memorial as the Holocaust Memorial directly opposite the Tiergarten. In the Memorial for the Persecuted Homosexuals, Elmgreen and Dragset added an additional dimension to Eisenman’s model within the cubic concrete shape. The evident allusion to the parallel monument, is of key symbolic significance as this memorial represents that people suffered the same way as the murdered Jews of Europe but for different reasons and represents a different minority.
The memorial has a prominent place in Berlin's Tiergarten park, across the road from the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe and a short distance from the Brandenburg Gate. The specific location of the memorial is geographically hidden in the Tiergarten Park amongst foilage, to some degree camoflauged and hard to find. This has caused offence to people who believe that the memorial was erected out of obligation and is not a clear way of commemorating the victims of the Shoah.
The video is concealed in the cuboid and to this extent it is could show respect to the individuals who were murdered during the Shoah. At the same time, the hidden video has sparked controversy from people who argue that homosexuals are still not free to be accepted.
Powerful in its understatedness...
A large block with a small window. No signs, no explanations, nothing. Inside is a screen showing a historical film of (when I watched it) lots of different gay people kissing. Simple, thought provoking, powerful...
it's isolation is significant to me. It's emotive and does what it exists to do - help you take time out and remember those people who were persecuted for being themselves - a rather difficult emotion to comprehend. I am rating this highly because it is such an evocative memorial - perhaps underwhelming to some but certainly overwhelming to others
Unlike the vast, open Memorial to the Murdered Jews across the road, I found this to be an understated, quiet and reflective place.
If you can go when it's not busy, there's a real power here. I found the structure and the video installation to be a very appropriate way of remembering the awful event.
It is a simple, square block of granite with a viewing panel inside that shows two people that are very much in love. A simple memorial. A simple and quite appropriate message of apology from the German Government.
POSITIVE REACTIONS
Out of the way and small.
I can't decide if that's offensive to gay people, compared to other memorials, or if it's simple and understated.
A more significant memorial should be in place. I found this almost insignificant, on the edge of the park.
Nothing at all to shout about as it feels like this memorial was erected out of obligation with very little thought put into it, which is disheartening.
It feels like this memorial was erected out of obligation with very little thought put into it, which is disheartening.
I still believe that it did not do the victims justice. These victims deserve more than just an ambiguous memorial
I don't really think it is sending the right message about being hidden in the woods, difficult to find, no information and then just a video with two men kissing on a loop...lesbians now added. Very disappointing that these people were also persecuted by the Nazis yet that is all they get, a stone in the wood, with a peep hole.