Footsteps of WWII · Berlin & eastern Germany
Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe
Memorial · 1941–1945 (opened 2005)
The story
Germany's central Holocaust memorial was designed by the American architect Peter Eisenman and dedicated on 10 May 2005, sixty years after the war ended. It covers a whole city block between the Brandenburg Gate and Potsdamer Platz, close to where Hitler's Chancellery stood. The field of 2,711 concrete stelae on undulating ground carries no names or symbols; Eisenman meant it to unsettle rather than explain. The explanation lies underneath, in the Information Centre, which tells the stories of individual families and holds the names of about three million Jewish victims obtained from Yad Vashem.
What to look for
Walk into the field: the ground dips and the stelae rise above head height, cutting off the city. The entrance to the underground Information Centre is at the south-east corner, with rooms on individual victims, families and the sites of murder across Europe.
Plan your visit
Field of stelae open 24 hours, free. Information Centre Tue–Sun 10:00–18:00 (last entry 45 minutes before), free; closed Mondays and 24–26 Dec. Security checks can mean a queue.
Things change, so check opening times before you travel.
Nearby sites
- Site of the Führerbunker · under 1 km
- Soviet War Memorial, Tiergarten · under 1 km
- Reichstag, Berlin · under 1 km
- Topography of Terror, Berlin · under 1 km
- German Resistance Memorial (Bendlerblock) · 1 km
- Soviet War Memorial, Treptower Park · 7 km
All 160 sites in Footsteps of WWII →
Footsteps of WWII: Europe 1939–1945
A free field guide for your phone: the route, the maps and the stories built in, even with no signal. The whole Second World War in Europe, from the first shots at Westerplatte on 1 September 1939 to the German surrender in May 1945: Dunkirk, the Battle of Britain, Normandy, Arnhem, Bastogne, Stalingrad, Berlin and the camps, in 15 areas from Britain to Russia.
Open the guide