Remembering and Forgetting Terror in Berlin

If Leonard Cohen is right, there is a crack in everything. Berlin now has a famous one. It runs through Breitscheidplatz, a square in the heart of the city. On 19 December 2016, a truck drove into a Christmas market at this very spot. The attack killed thirteen people. The names of twelve victims of this terror attack are engraved into the stairs leading to the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church at the centre of the square. And, there is a golden crack cutting through the stairs and the square. Installed in 2017, this memorial is a subtle reminder of the attack in 2016. In this essay, the author reflects on the atmosphere at the Breitscheidplatz Christmas market in 2022. It shows that there is a complex interplay of remembering and forgetting.