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Berlin (dpa) - The controversial Holocaust Memorial in Berlin has proved a tourist magnet in its first year, attracting an estimated 3.5 million visitors from around the world.
But the public's reaction to the graveyard-like structure remains divided. As Lea Rosh, who campaigned 17 years for the memorial to be built admits: "Half of the population accepts it. I hope that at least part of the other half can also be convinced."
The haunting memorial of 2,700 grey concrete slabs graded to a height of 4.7 metres, and a below-ground information centre, is located just yards from the Brandenburg Gate, Berlin's 18th century triumphal arch. It commemorates the six million European Jews murdered by the Nazi regime.
Even in its planning stages it sparked controversy, with some Germans apparently wishing the nation's darkest chapter was best left to "quietly fade away" - a suggestion that incensed the temperamental Ms Rosh.
Inaugurated on May 10, 2005 in the presence of its architect Peter Eisenman, and hundreds of German, Jewish and international representatives, the memorial opened to the public two days later.
New York-based Eisenman has said he intended the monument "to create the intense feeling ... of being alone, and of being tortured."
Early visitor activity caused concern among some Jews, as people clambered atop its pillars to take photographs, and youngsters chased one another in and out of its labyrinth of concrete slabs.
Now officials and security guards are less nervous. "The vast majority of visitors behave with dignity when strolling among the pillars," they say. Some 10,000 people a day visit the site. Uwe Neumaerker, the business manager of the Memorial Foundation, says many who once opposed the project are "now our friends."
Eberhard Diepgen, Berlin's ex-governing mayor, was an early critic, fearing the pillars might get smeared with swastikas, and the site plagued by neo-Nazi elements.
Now he finds praise for Eisenman - even if his initial concerns regarding the Memorial's mega-size remain.
Hungarian-born writer Gyoergy Konrad, once bitterly opposed to the project, now thinks differently. Following a recent visit to the memorial the ex-president of Berlin's Academy of Arts, wrote that he had experienced "heightened consciousness" when moving among the pillars.
"Yes, it is a kind of cemetery where one thinks about death; and, about those you have lost and still miss," he noted.
But the memorial still managed to spark controversy. Rosh was appalled recently when it was disclosed that a 150-metre-long wooden pavilion, complete with restaurants and toilet facilities was to be built on the edge of the solemn site.
She termed the pavilion unbearable, and said it would cheapen the sanctity of the Memorial.
Neumaerker countered there was nothing objectionable about providing a viewing tower, cafes and toilets in the complex.
In any case, it was only provisional, he said. Plans call for it to be replaced by a multi-story building in three years.
For Rosh, a former German TV celebrity, the memorial is a symbol showing that "we will never forget, and will always honour the murdered Jews."
A memorial "promotion circle" she established with German historian Eberhard Jaeckel seeks to have the names of 3.2 Holocaust victims formally documented in the memorial's information centre, courtesy of Israel's Yad Vashem.
By April 2007 some 5,000 detailed "biographies" of Holocaust victims will be registered at the "info" centre - as against 800 at present.
Gideon Joffe, the leader of Berlin's Jewish Community, says the memorial, which covers 19,000 square metres of space, is now firmly accepted by most members of Berlin's 12,000-strong Jewish community.
Copyright 2006 dpa Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH
