At the opening of the exhibition »Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe and the Information Centre« as part of the Federal Government’s Exhibition on Berlin, the new German capital, the Foundation’s Executive Director, Prof. Sibylle Quack said:
The fact that the new exhibition on the progress of the Memorial project, designed by Dagmar von Wilcken, has been opened close to the site of the Memorial and just before building work is due to commence, is no coincidence. Here at Behrenstrasse 39, we will – along with other activities on the site fence – be providing up-to-the-minute information on the progress of the project, including details of what is happening on the building site and work on the Information Centre.
Now that the preliminary works, which commenced last October, are completed and final planning permission has been granted, the major building contracts – excavation of the foundation pit, foundation works, fabricating the concrete stelae – have gone out to open tender. The foundation pit is scheduled for the end of August/beginning of September.
The new exhibition also shows the artistic concept and planned content of the Information Centre beneath the Memorial, which was recently approved by the Foundation’s Board of Trustees. The idea is that the Centre will contain exemplary documentation of the life stories of individual Jewish victims and the fate of entire families from all over Europe and show how the annihilation process spread from Germany to the rest of Europe. It will also provide information and links to other memorial sites in Germany and throughout Europe.
A central element of the concept is that the names of people murdered will be read out and documented in the Information Centre. During the Executive Director’s visit to Jerusalem a few weeks ago, the technical details and content of the collaboration on this with the Israeli Yad Vashem Memorial were agreed
