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Lest we forget
On the 90th anniversary of the Nazi book-burnings ANGUS REID casts an eye over the memorial in Berlin to this fundamental moment in the making of fascism
The 'Empty Library' memorial, with St. Hedwig's Cathedral behind; German students and Nazi SA members plunder the library of Magnus Hirschfeld, director of the institute of Sexual Research, 6th May 1933 [Kemmi.1/CC; Public domain/German Federal Archive/CC]

HOW can memorials powerfully remind us of past horrors? How can they keep the atrocities of the past alive and relevant? 

Micha Ullmann's Berlin memorial commemorates the fascist blaze, when 90 years ago today, on 10 May 1933, 20,000 works by a great number of German and international authors were devoured by the flames before an ecstatic crowd. 

While the directive for burning books was aimed at “left,” democratic, and Jewish literature, the vast majority of the books burned in Bebelplatz, the Square at the State Opera, Berlin, came from the library of Magnus Hirschfeld, the pioneering sexologist and campaigner for sexual equality, and were a public resource dedicated to exploring the diversity of human sexuality in a way that was extraordinarily progressive for its time. 

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