Pre-Site Visit Reflection
What is the memorial physically?
The sunken library is a memorial that highlights what is missing. Underneath the ground of Bebelplatz sits a square of empty white shelves. This empty library has space for over 20,000 books as a reminder of the 20,000 books burned on May 10, 1933 by the Nazi Regime. Two bronze plaques are engraved on the stone beside the library, the first of these plaques contains the inscription:
“That was but a prelude
Where they burn books
They will ultimately burn people as well
Heinrich Heine 1820”
And on the other:
“In the middle of this square on May 10, 1933, National Socialist students burned the works of hundreds of freelance writers, journalists, philosophers and scientists.”
The bookless library simulates what is not there, illustrating the violence and ignorance of the Nazi government. The monument was created in 1995 by artist Micha Ullman who was born in 1939 in Tel-Aviv Israel. His art is based on the remembrance of memory and is always pointing to the past, including the Bebelplatz Book Burning Memorial. He states
“It begins with the void that exists in every pit and will not disappear. You could say that emptiness is a state, a situation formed by the sides of the pit: The deeper it is, the more sky there will be and the greater the void. In the library containing the missing books, that void is more palpable. We expect [the books] but they are not there.”
What happened on May 10th, 1933?
On May 10th, 1933 40,000 individuals gathered in front of the Berlin Oprea House to either participate or watch the burning of thousands of books and literature. Students from Wilhelm Humboldt University who were members of a student right-wing organization, the Nazi German Student Union, and their professors escorted 6 vans filled with books from their libraries, which they deemed as un-German, and tossed them into a massive bonfire.
The books that were chosen to be burned were based on blacklists written by a librarian Wolfgang Herrmann. These lists would then be used to sort and eliminate books in private bookshelves, public libraries, and academic collections. Hitler’s Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels gave a speech that inspired other students in different towns to do this same act of book burning from their own libraries and bookshelves.
From 1935 onwards blacklists where created including the official title list of harmful and undesirable literature and were published once a year by the responsible office – the Reichsschrifttumskammer (Reich Chamber of Literature). This act became so well known that book burnings happened in 33 other cities. As this happened in 1933 there was yet to be any mass murder or concentration camps put in place, this act would be a prelude to the many horrors that would soon come. It set a standard for the new regime’s ideals.
Post-Site Visit Reflection
On our first day of the I-witness Field School Program in Berlin Germany, we visited the Bebelplatz Book Burning Memorial. This memorial, as well as the place-based learning this field school offered brought forth an aspect that I had yet to examine in my pre-trip research.
Changing with Time Physically
When first arriving at the site, I was surprised to find how easy the memorial would be to overlook if unaware of the piece’s presence. In broad daylight, the sunken library art piece does not indicate to passersby that the piece is there. The memorial is placed flush with the concrete of Bebelplatz, with no raised features to the site. This sunken aspect of the memorial, while being thought provocative, makes the piece nearly invisible to individuals not walking directly over or beside the memorial. Two plaques supply information on the memorial by stating “In the middle of this square on May 10, 1933, National Socialist students burned the works of hundreds of freelance writers, journalists, philosophers, and scientists.” as well as
“That was but a prelude
Where they burn books
They will ultimately burn people as well
Heinrich Heine 1820”
To my surprise, these bronze plaques are placed considerably far from the art piece. While at the site, I often witnessed individuals stopping to view the sunken library yet missing the key information on the plaques due to their placement. The glass covering the sunken library also poses some interesting critiques. The glass, during the day, is foggy and scratches due to repetitive use and foot traffic of viewers. Viewing the shelves can be difficult because of these scratches and I can see this problem becoming worse as time continues.
How the Current Events of the World Impact Memorial Spaces
A few meters away in Bebelplatz Square was another memorial that I was not aware of before viewing the site. The art piece is for the current genocide occurring with the Israel and Palestine conflict for the 132 Israeli hostages held in Hamas captivity. The installation features 132 empty chairs with images of the hostages on each chair as well as a 20-meter-long “Tunnel of Terror” that simulates the current conditions these hostages face. Upon entering the activist installation, individuals are met with a 3-meter-tall hourglass, titled “The Hostages’ Hourglass,” with red sand that symbolizes the urgency to bring these hostages back home.
This activist installation and my site of the Bebelplatz book-burning memorial are in direct conversation with one another, drawing many parallels between what occurred in the past to the present events occurring today. The last of the features of this installation, that illustrates these parallels, is a case of the burned books found from Kibbutz Nir Oz following October 7th, 2024.
When reflecting on these parallels I am drawn to the reading, Multidirectional Memory: Remembering the Holocaust in the Age of Decolonization, written by Michael Rothberg. In his introduction, Rothberg introduces the concept of Multidirectional Memory by stating “The term ‘multidirectional memory’ was coined as a way of conceptualizing what happens when different histories of extreme violence confront each other in the public sphere.” The memory of the book burning, that perpetuated and influenced Nazi ideals, is in no way in competition with the new memory of the books burned and people taken in Israel. This square actualizes Rothberg’s idea of how histories are not competing with each other but flowing into one another. As history evolves this square will forever be known not as a place to compare the two genocides but to apply continuity and contextualization to the past and present.
I will not be stating my direct opinion on this genocide due to the increased complexity and polarization of the issue however, I will say that this installation touched me deeper than any other memorial we visited. I believe that this is because of the presence of layered and multidirectional memory. For the pre-trip planning and research, we had discussed multidirectional and layered memory, however, I did not know that these concepts would have such an influence on my reflections on memorials. While examining my site through placed-based learning I was confronted with how the aspect of time can change a memorial site physically, but also change the meaning of a memorial entirely.