Bremen builds memorial on expropriation of Jews during Nazi era

 

BREMEN – The German city Bremen is building a memorial to mark the mass expropriation of European Jews during the Nazi era.

The structure, worth €500,000 ($551,450), is due to be completed in June. It is to be located near the river Weser, where goods and objects stolen from occupied Western countries were brought to Bremen.

Evin Oettingshausen’s design features a 6-metre shaft through which viewers can look down from above through a window.

“The view into the depths of the room only allows us to guess the illustrations in the lower part of the building,” according to Oettingshausen. This symbolizes the “gaps in history that continue to this day” regarding the process of coming to terms with the past, he said.

The Senate in Bremen says the memorial is the first in Germany to explicitly address the expropriation, removal and exploitation of Jewish property.

When the Nazis came to power, Jews were stripped of their citizenship and property, imprisoned and killed.

During the Holocaust, the German Nazi regime systematically murdered about 6 million Jews in Europe between 1941 and 1945, a genocide that amounted to about two-thirds of Europe’s Jewish population.