The Memorial for Walter Benjamin is a piece of architecture and sculpture of historical, artistic, and social interest located near the cemetery of Portbou in Alt Empordà. It is part of the Inventari del Patrimoni Arquitectònic de Catalunya. Inaugurated in 1994, it is a work of Dani Karavan and serves as a symbol of culture and peace, recognizing all the unnamed beings who traveled in exile seeking freedom.
Promoted by the association AsKI of Bonn and supported by the Presidency of the Generalitat de Catalunya and the German laenders, the memorial incorporates four elements into the landscape. The first passage is a tunnel with 87 steps leading from the entrance plaza to the sea. It is a narrow metal staircase nestled between rusted iron plates 2.35 m high in a corridor excavated into the slope. After 75% of the route, a glass pane blocks the path, showing a quote from Benjamin's works on Sobre el concepte d'història (1940). Below the quote is the name of Walter Benjamin.
As you go down the tunnel, the sea and the mountains of Cap de Cervera appear. On the day of Benjamin's death, the shadow passes through his name, which serves as a signature to the quote. A second passage features a blue sky cutout suggesting freedom, followed by an iron path recalling a railway line that leads to a stone wall.
The third passage follows a coastal and rocky path that leads to an old olive tree, a sign of resistance and reconciliation used repeatedly by Karavan. The path offers views of the Pyrenees and the Mediterranean, and a glimpse of the old border crossing. The journey ends at a small esplanade with a 16 m2 square platform and a stone cube, where a metal fence resembling those used in concentration camps remains intact.
Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons
Written by Nik Frost
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