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well first of all I had no experience of
the Holocaust personally and I didn't
know if I really wanted to do this
project when I started because the
project was so immense that the idea of
the project in the middle of Berlin holy
jeepers I mean and the struggle we had
with political parties and and Jewish
community didn't want a memorial and I
didn't want they wanted stuff with
Jewish symbolism stars and lettering and
I said no I don't want any of that
I want a field of other nests
people understand that to have been a
Jew in Germany was other and what was it
like to be other in space and time and
that's how we came up with the field it
had nothing to do really with the
Holocaust it is symbolically but it had
to do with the fact that I had spoken to
a young woman who went with her mother
to Auschwitz she arrived at Auschwitz
from Budapest and 40 late 44 and Mangala
was there and he took her mother over
and pushed her mother over there and she
said no I want to be with my mother and
Mengele kicked her and said you'll be
with your mother soon enough and she
said at that moment I felt lost alone
and lost in space I didn't know how to
move or what to do and I wanted that
feeling of being lost in space to
inhabit the memorial and and that's what
we did we made this field and you can
feel dislocated from
being and it's you know the sound is
different the space is different the
fact that it undulates you know it's a
very strange thing and it needed to be
big because it was just a few pillars
it'll be nothing and it's not about the
pillars it's about the field of this
movement and the walking in it and
feeling it it goes like this as you walk
and it was a really lucky accident that
we turned out the way it did I think
it's not like my other work but it's not
as a commission like my other work
either and so I think it works I think
it works for a lot of people not the way
I think of it or maybe the way you think
of it but for the average person look
what I wanted I wanted school kids who
come and draw in buses okay and little
hunts goes is seven years old and he
runs around
he plays tag he gets lost he you know
his it it's really fun it's like running
around the Catholic Church you know if
you're seven years old he goes home and
grandfather who might have been in the
army or with the regime or something
sister what do you do today little Hans
I have a great time that's a Holocaust
Memorial boom and that's what I wanted
that idea to hit grandfather father at
home that hey I had a great time at all
are you kidding me and it was that
feeling to get to the popular level that
really was important to me that the kids
not realizing what they were saying or
doing and the grandfather not realizing
what the kid could have meant it was to
me important and that's what I hear
when I go there and I talk to children
especially they love it I had a friend
of mine who just recently went with his
kids and they like yours they they feel
it but they don't know what it is and I
don't think it matters if someone from
Mars came down that knew nothing about
Jews Germany Holocaust and walked in the
field they would know who it was
different than walking in and unter den
Linden or walking in you know in Paris
or London something was different you
spoke about the girl and the mother that
got separated the mother was killed the
girl survived and you said you wanted to
transform this feeling of loneliness and
space and time being lost in space and
time into the memorial but today the
memorial is visited by thousands of
people every day so there are crowds
almost mass on young khun's
how does this go together with your
original idea well first of all I can't
control that look I watch people I mean
they don't behave quite as simply as
just crowds mothers are afraid to let
the kids sometimes to walk in to don't
go too far you hear them say stay on the
edge by the way others you can hear
screaming when if this kid goes around
the corner and you go around another
corner you might not find the kid even
though it's impossible to get lost
trying to move with both people are
moving finding each other is difficult
okay there's nothing that says if I move
there I'll find the kid over here so
there are lots of people get lost there
are a lot of people that eat lunch on
the pillars they sunbathe on the
the pillars their sexual liaisons that
occur in the field at night I mean all
kinds of things who its public place
it's not it I gave it to the city let's
say I have nothing to do with it it's
not my problem
the people that go to the memorial and
talk about the Holocaust but that's not
the effect that it really has on people
see they only project that and there's
nothing to do there's no Jewish
symbolism no German symbolism nothing
some concrete slabs it's not a cemetery
it's not about guilt there's nothing I
had in mind that had anything to do I
don't feel that the German the volca
today are guilty no more guilty than we
are voting Trump in I mean I take
responsibility I participated in a vote
to elect this man
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it's their relationship between
architecture and memory not only with
the memorial budget and speaking that's
true that's architecture incorporates
our memories
well architecture collects a collective
memory not individual memory necessarily
and architecture I believe is necessary
to mark collective memory okay and
that's what it's about
I mean the words we need to mark our
moment in time with our architecture
let's say whether it's zeitgeist or not
and that's another course it could be
anti zeitgeist I mean I work with a
Hegelian proposition of you two having a
thesis you know an antithesis and then
you have some kind of resolution but
it's never the whole thesis nor the
entity it's partial
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you