Is it 4 shelves of closed books, spines turned inward? Is it a bunker, doors forever closed? Is it a chamber with something precious inside? Who knows. But people did have opinions when the holocaust memorial on the Judenplatz was revealed in 2000. Even some Jewish people thought it spoiled the beautiful little square.

When the builders started digging into the street below, they uncovered the remains of an age-old synagogue. The story goes that dozens of Jewish people committed suicide on the same spot centuries before, to resist being captured by a religious persecutor.

Yes. History has a tendency of repeating itself. And we have a tendency of not learning from history. 65,000 Jewish people of Austria were killed during the holocaust. That equals 178 persons per day for an entire year. Imagine the slaughter.

(Vienna, Austria; February 2017)