Germans Give OK to Memorial for Jewish Holocaust Victims

The German Parliament on Friday backed a U.S. architect’s design for a national Holocaust memorial remembering the 6 million Jews killed under the Nazis, signaling an end to 10 years of argument.

Jewish groups said they welcomed the lawmakers’ approval, after four hours of debate, of the design by New Yorker Peter Eisenman. It envisages a maze the size of two football fields filled with 2,600 close-set concrete pillars, giving the impression of a huge graveyard.

Bundestag members also voted 314 to 209, with 14 abstentions, to incorporate a proposal by Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s government that the monument, to be situated near the Brandenburg Gate, be supplemented with an exhibition and multimedia documentation center.

Parliament President Wolfgang Thierse said, “With this memorial, there can be no more denial or indifference.”

Leaders of Germany’s small Jewish population, swollen in recent years by Russian emigrants, said they were satisfied with the vote.

Intellectuals--such as Germany’s best-known author, Gunter Grass--at first supported the project but then turned against it, arguing that a monument was insufficient to commemorate so horrific a crime.