"I think that we can only see the Holocaust in fragments, and these fragments are individual lives and individual deaths, and this is the only measure of things." (Bałka in Davies-Crook, 2011)
"However he abused his long-suffering people, the fear they must now be feeling is surely real." (Taylor, 2011)
"The building was completely sealed," said Klapsch, "so an utter stillness lay over everything. It was a strange feeling." (Spiegel Online, 2010)
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"The tacit nature of this work's Germanness is striking. Imagine walking through an exhibition by Joseph Beuys devoted to the idea of the German nation without having to notice that this is the theme. Impossible. For Gerhard Richter, even more impossible. With Sigmar Polke, Hanne Darboven, Anselm Kiefer, Isa Genzken or Martin Kippenberger--for any of the photographers of the Becher school, too--a reflection on Germany and the traces of its history in the present could only be patent, unavoidable. Is this Demand's lesson: that Germany is now no different from anyplace else, that it is at last a normal, self-confident European nation like any other, unburdened of the memory of its historic tragedies, free of the guilt and resentment that have weighed so heavily on Demand's precursors? Has the effort of Vergangenheitsbewältigung (coming to terms with the past), a process as cumbersome as the word, been completed, or has it simply fizzled out?" (Schwabsky, 2009)
"...What counts as destruction, and what counts as 'ours,' depends on your viewpoint. In 2002 the German Parliament voted to demolish the Palast der Republik, the grandiose seat of the former East German Parliament... It had been closed since 1990, and the idea was to replace it with a replica of the kaiser's castle that had once occupied the spot. The German Parliament sought to efface part of Berlin's living history in favor of sham historicism. Nothing that belonged to the GDR, according to powerful elements in Germany today, could possibly be 'ours.'" (Schwabsky, 2009)
"Too often in politics, very complex subjects are being turned into sound bites, so it’s easy to take them apart" (Niemann, in Kaneko & Mouly, 2011).
"Walking around the empty rooms, halls and corridors, it takes some imagination to picture this rambling, deserted complex filled with thousands of people... The light falling on the faded pastel-colored walls and on the flaking paint of the doors give this military architecture a nostalgic atmosphere. Here and there, one finds objects left behind, such as a broken piano lying in the dust, its legs removed." (Rüger, 2011)Rüger, Jörg (2011) Abandoned Soviet Outpost: Glimpses of a Forgotten, Forbidden City.
"Inside the exhibit space, visitors step into a media field composed of 40 seven-foot screens. As the screens come to life, visitors discover a 12-minute immersive film. A kaleidoscope of images and sound surrounds them. They are enveloped in a rich narrative about the pattern of progress, told through awe-inspiring stories of the past and present. They are inspired to think about humankind's quest for progress, and about making our world work better, today." (IBM, 2011)IBM (2011) An Exploration into Making the World Work Better [Online]
"In November 1989 the wall came down, and West and East Germans began rediscovering each other; but the socialist and capitalist cultures have been slow to merge. Since reunification Germany has been searching for new patterns of self-recognition." (Stih & Schnock, 2009)
"Philosophy estranges us from the familiar not by supplying new information but by inviting and provoking a new way of seeing… once the familiar turns strange, it's never quite the same again. Self-knowledge is like lost innocence, however unsettling you find it, it can never be unthought or unknown. What makes this enterprise difficult but also riveting, is that moral and political philosophy is a story and you don't know where this story will lead but what you do know is that the story is about you." (Sandel, 2009)
"Westerners are the protagonists of their autobiographical novels... Asians are merely cast members in movies touching on their existences." (Nisbett, in Osnos, 2011)
"Everyone can talk about their memories of the time and explain a bit about how things were." (Christa Holtei, in Smith, 2011)
"In the sallow morning light, Berlin's makeup seems about to crumble, and a transformation happens: things, buildings, places you have seen a thousand times before appear strange and new. In a while, nothing will look the same. The urban landscapes in these photographs are mostly places in transition, waiting for their reshaping. This leaves the chance for a sequel: how will these places look in a conceivable future?" (Schirrmeister, 2010)
[Wowereit] would have preferred to prolong his four-month-old coalition with the Greens. But the two parties did not win an overall majority. He has now started talks with the Free Democrats, with a view to a three-party coalition. Even that would give him only a five-seat majority. With the ex-communists, he would be 13 ahead. He is also reluctant to exclude a party supported by nearly half of all who voted in the former Soviet zone of the city. (The Economist, 2001)
"It took a while for people to notice. After the brief euphoria of unification in 1990, the West’s subsidised industry and the East’s socialist enterprise collapsed alongside each other." (The Economist, 2011)
