A vast new Holocaust memorial is being unveiled in the heart of Berlin today after 17 years of debate.
The memorial, a haunting field of 2,711 grey gravestone-like slabs, is being opened at a ceremony attended by its American architect Peter Eisenman, leaders from Germany's Jewish community and a number of Holocaust survivors.
It sits between the Brandenburg Gate and the buried remains of Adolf Hitler's bunker, and after it is opened to the public on Thursday visitors can wander in freely at any time.
It will be greeted by many Germans but may attract vandals, according to the politician who is unveiling it.
"I believe it will be accepted by the younger generation, but surely not by everyone," Wolfgang Thierse, speaker of the Bundestag parliament, told German radio. "There will be opposition, indifference, denial."
Years of debate since the idea surfaced just before the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 have raged over how best to remember the Holocaust. Critics have argued that the design was too abstract and attacked the decision to put the memorial in such a prominent location.
From a distance, the site looks like a dark, placid ocean. As visitors descend on uneven, sloping ground into the memorial, the unmarked concrete blocks rise to heights of up to 4.7 metres (15 feet), tilt at odd angles and street noise fades.
The experience is intended to create feelings of unease and loneliness, encouraging discussion and reflection on the plight of the six million Jewish victims of the Third Reich.
An underground information centre, added to the original plan at the request of the German government, complements the field of pillars with personal stories of individual Jews across Europe that were killed by the Nazis.