This is brilliant – though a sad sign of the times that it needs to be done:
What is wrong with these people? Selfies in a holocaust memorial? pic.twitter.com/jMjkbc7AH6
— Harlan Z. Hill (@Harlan) January 28, 2017
The Holocaust Memorial in Berlin (or the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe) is a truly awe-inspiring monument – the whole city block in the centre of Berlin, next to the Brandenburg Gate, covered in rows upon rows of concrete sepulchres, like an old world cemetery, which it is meant to evoke, dropped in the middle of the city.
But it’s sadly the case that many (young) tourists either don’t take the time to read the signs explaining what this is or have such weak grasp of history they don’t comprehend the context or simply don’t care. I was at the memorial in September last year and the two overweight middle-aged security guards were getting plenty of exercise constantly telling tourist to get down from the slabs and chasing others who thought it was fun to skip from one to the next, like some sort of a Holocaust parkour.
You can read more about Shahak Shapira’s Yolocaust project here, visit the site or check out the artist himself – isn’t it one of the most splendid home pages ever? (Shahak is an Israeli who has lived in Berlin for the past 14 years)
This is what the memorial looks like from its south-western corner:
And there were people making out on Jewish graves, which would have been a perfect photoshop fodder for Shahak:
