The Room of Names

There is no escaping the primary memorial for the victims of the Holocaust in central Berlin: The Memorial for the Murdered Jews in Europe. It is direct and to the point. The Jews of Europe did not die as a result of war but were murdered. What happened was a deliberate act.

In a darkened room in the memorial, there are projectors illuminating the names, and when it is known the birth and death dates, of individual victims of National Socialism on the four walls. A commentator, in hushed tones, reads a short biography of the person named, first in German, then in English. There are six benches situated in the room where visitors can sit and contemplate on the lives of victims, and their own, while listening to these short biographies. Based on testimonies, many of the biographies are heartbreaking, short and incomplete; sometimes indicating that a person was probably present at a massacre and was never heard from again. It is difficult to imagine that about half the victims of the Holocaust have not, or unlikely ever to be, identified. At first glance this may seem to be odd or unexplainable; however, I consider what if I were among the 200 or so survivors of my current domicile of roughly 10,000. What it must be like to overcome the trauma, and guilt, of such a cataclysmic event and then be burdened with the responsibility of remembering as many people as I could; piecing together details of their lives and recording their names and lives for posterity. It is little wonder that many of the victims are remain unknown.