Bundestag approves national memorial to Holocaust Jews

Germany ended a painful, 10-year debate over its past yesterday when the Bundestag agreed to build a national memorial for the Jewish victims of the Holocaust.

The monument, to occupy a large site by Berlin's Brandenburg Gate, will consist of 2,700 tombstone-like pillars with an underground information centre.

The parliament decided to include the information centre in response to fears, expressed by the Chancellor, Mr Gerhard Schroder, among others, that the design by US architect Mr Peter Eisenmann might otherwise be too abstract to explain the history of the Holocaust to visitors.

The Bundestag president, Mr Wolfgang Thierse, said the memorial, which will be close to the site of Hitler's bunker, would allow the country to end its most shameful century with dignity.

"We are not building this memorial for the Jews or for other victims. We are building it for us. With this memorial there can be no more denial or indifference."

Berlin's mayor, Mr Eberhard Diepgen, opposed building the monument on the grounds that it was too big and would turn the capital into "a city of mourning".

A leading member of Germany's Jewish community criticised the decision to dedicate the memorial just to Jewish victims of the Holocaust, ignoring other groups who were persecuted by Hitler, such as gypsies and homosexuals.

Mr Salomon Korn, a member of the Central Council of the Jews in Germany, said the Bundestag had missed an historic chance and risked creating "a hierarchy of victims".

The parliament rejected an alternative proposal by a theologian, Mr Richard Schroder, for a single stone inscribed with the words "Thou shalt not kill".

Work on the memorial, which will cost DM15 million, could start as early as next year.

The project was first proposed almost 10 years ago by a television journalist, Ms Lea Rosh, with the support of the late Willy Brandt and the writer Gunter Grass.

Dr Helmut Kohl's government agreed to lay aside a site next to the Brandenburg Gate but, when a competition was held, the former chancellor vetoed the winning design.

The memorial, which resembles a huge graveyard, will spread over an area the size of two football pitches and will require huge security to prevent neo-Nazi vandalism. Right-wing extremists have targeted many Jewish sites in Berlin in recent years.

The Jerusalem office of the Nazi-hunting Wiesenthal Centre said it was a "step forward" for Germany. "We think it is absolutely vital that there be a monument established by the Federal Republic as its statement on the events of the Holocaust," said the centre's Mr Efraim Zuroff.