On the corners around the Holocaust Monument in Berlin 4 laser lights will be ignited. They cross each other high in the night sky. The rays are subtle small lines of misty beams, a powerful thin illuminated string that connects earth and heaven. People will be invited to come and enter the monument with burning memorial lights. For 7 nights the Holocaust Memorial will be transformed into a Monument of Light.

The Holocaust Monument is a construction of 2700 concrete pillars, designed by American architect Peter Eisenmann. The blocks vary in size from 50 cm to 4.5 meters in height, with paths in between which only have the width of one person.
This Holocaust Monument does not have an entrance, no exit, no centre, and also no feeling of togetherness. Each visitor is left on his own during his journey through this complex. The all-embracing concrete evokes an oppressive feeling, loneliness and fear, resembling on that what the Jews felt during the oppression from the Nazi’s.

A visit will be confronting for each guest, but is an even greater ordeal for the Germans. Many are conscious of the dark past of their nation and thus realize their responsibility for the present and future. The architecture works aggravating on their feelings. The fact that all concrete pillars also once more are saturated with materials, which are delivered by a company that also produced the poisonous gas Zyklon-B, in addition affects the dignity of the monument. The Germans never seem to forget their own past, that turns out to reappear again and again in everyday life. That confronts them painfully when they enter the monument.

On the contrary there is a need for more individual assimilation possibilities that leaves room for a more personal engagement. Besides with stone, death may also be remembered with light. Let us fill up the Holocaust Monument with a light of our own that comes from the innermost of our hearts, expressing hope that there will be a Holocaust on earth never again. Let us take with us a memorial light, to visualize an active involvement of our own.

During the Monument of Light visitors will bring a candle for an individual meditative procession through the Holocaust Monument by themselves. In this way everybody will become part of a personal and simultaneously also common purification and inauguration ceremony. The lights will stay behind, when the visitors leave the monument again. In this way the Holocaust Monument will be enlightened by thousands of candles and by positive energy from the individuals who have placed these. A pyramid of laser light will reinforce this image and will add an extra value to this monument.

The laser lights should be kindled each year during a whole week, to let the Memorial of Light return as a remaining event. With the manager of the Holocaust Monument, the Stiftung für die ermordete Juden Europas, the possibilities of Memorial of Light are investigated.

 

                                          

Everybody who wants to achieve a Pyramid of Light for peace may contact the initiators of the Pyramid of Light, Rob Schrama and Guido Hoogenboom.
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