Germany unveils Holocaust memorial

GERMANY opened its long-delayed Holocaust memorial yesterday - a field of closely set concrete slabs in the heart of Berlin that tries to summon the helplessness of six million Jews killed by the Nazis.

However, Germany’s most prominent Jewish leader expressed concern at the ceremony that the memorial is too abstract to convey as powerful a message as authentic places of suffering, such as former death camps.

Parliament president Wolfgang Thierse joined Jewish delegates, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and other dignitaries at the opening of the sprawling memorial near the Brandenburg Gate.