Holocaust Tower, Jewish Museum, Kreuzberg, Berlin

Visitors were ushered into the blackness of the empty tower in small groups then shut in for a few minutes. I stayed for about fifteen minutes to get a feel for the atmosphere. Most people only stayed long enough to take a photo, but I sidled into a corner, listening for the faint sounds of external rumblings, noting the maintenance ladder on one wall, stretching from the very top, but tantalisngly out of reach for those below (I wonder how many people reached out in vain for rails, ladders - anything - in a gas chamber, or a darkened railway carriage transporting them to a fate unknown). As flash photography was forbidden, my picture of the ladder below hasn't come out (but you're welcome to download the photo and use Photoshop on it).


The next two photos show the corner of the tower (imagine a tall, narrow structure with sharply angled walls) with a shard of light.

It is an architecture perfectly suited to mental anguish, torture - a shard of light (hope?), some external rumblings (a sign you're not alone or abandoned, or the sound of impending death?) - cutting you off, plunging you into darkness, uncertainty and doubt.