Book Burning Memorial

On Bebelplatz in Berlin, right next to the boulevard Unter den Linden, a striking memorial commemorates the book burning of May 1933. Designed in 1995 by the Israeli artist Micha Ullman, the monument marks the authentic spot where tens of thousands of works, mainly by Jewish, communist, and liberal authors, were burned with the participation of students and professors from Friedrich Wilhelm University. The design consists of an underground room measuring five by five by five meters, set into the square. This entirely whitewashed room is not accessible, but its walls hold empty shelves with space for 20,000 volumes. Through a glass plate set into the paving, you can look down into this empty space. Two bronze plaques embedded in the ground inform passersby about the historical significance of the site and begin with a quotation from Heinrich Heine that links the destruction of books to the later persecution of people.