Holocaust Memorial

The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, designed by the American architect Peter Eisenman and opened in 2005, covers a full city block with 2,711 concrete stelae of varying height. There is no set route and no explanatory sign on the field itself. You walk in, the ground drops away, the blocks rise over your head, and the traffic noise falls off. What it means is deliberately left to you.

Underneath the field is the Ort der Information, the Information Center, which supplies what the stelae withhold: family histories, last letters, and a room where the names of the victims are read aloud. Admission is free. Allow an hour, and expect it to be quiet.

This is a place of remembrance, not a photo backdrop. The foundation that runs the site asks visitors not to climb, jump between or picnic on the stelae, and staff will say so if you do. Berlin has a long-running debate about how people behave here; the simple version is to treat it the way you would a cemetery.

The memorial lies just south of the Brandenburg Gate, between the Tiergarten and Potsdamer Platz, so it sits naturally in the standard first-day walk through Mitte. Brandenburger Tor and Potsdamer Platz stations are both within about five minutes on foot.