Holocaust Memorial

Even though I keep finding myself in Berlin, two years ago, it was my first opportunity to visit the Holocaust Memorial. It was soon going to be spring, snow was becoming slush, and in that dusk I found myself standing infront of the memorial. Except it didn't feel like any memorial. It was a sloping piece of land with concrete slabs(Stelae), of different sizes,  neatly placed. From a distance it might give an impression of a cemetery -  typical for fallen soldiers. The stelae weren't of uniform sizes or like tombstones; it was like a maze. It was confusing to be a memorial. 

I didn't have much time to think so I decided to enter the memorial walking along the snow covered alleys between the stelae, and then it dawned on me. Even though there was uniformity in the alleys, still it appeared confusing and claustrophobic. There was nothing significant in that place except those stelae, it was difficult to breathe and you would feel like a prisoner in the maze. There was nothing to remind that I was a human while walking on those alleys except the crunching of the snow beneath the feet. That's how those Jews, who were murdered, must have felt. Not a human being anymore, no wish, no choice, no joy but a prisoner on the endless maze. An ordered yet a cruel system. That's how they would have felt while living in concentration camps, in ghettos, being gassed or burnt in the incendiary towers. The ashes falling like flakes to which they were reduced. One can feel the suffocation, the yearning, the desire, the pain, the tears of not being human being anymore. The sudden and excruciating degradation from human to an object.

The Nobel laureate novelist, Imre Kertesz in his book "Fateless" describing the life in concentration camps has through the protagonist Gyuri made a point - Gyuri accepts the inhuman treatment, he just wanted to know why ?

The greatest injustice is not the cruelty perpetuated on you, but not even having the opportunity to seek justice. The greatest injustice is not to bear the suffering, the pain, the agony, the torture, but not to even know why these were inflicted on you?