Mahnmal

English

Noun

Mahnmal (plural Mahnmals)

1. (Germanism) a Mahnmal
   • 2009, K. Michael Prince, War and German Memory →ISBN:

     A Mahnmal seeks to transmit the more forceful urgency of a warning, an admonition or an exhortation. […] Though Mahnmals are most often associated with the sites of former concentration camps and other Holocaust memorials, they also may bear an antiwar message, […]

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German

FWOTD – 12 November 2013

This sculpture of a mother holding her dead son, located in the Neue Wache in Berlin, is a Mahnmal to the destruction of war.

Etymology

mahnen (“remind (someone of something) pressingly; warn (someone of something); urge (someone to do something necessary)”) +‎ Mal

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [ˈmaːnˌmaːl]

Noun

Mahnmal n (genitive Mahnmals or Mahnmales, plural Mahnmale or Mahnmäler)

1. A monument that serves as a reminder of a tragic event and a warning that the event should not be allowed to occur again.
   • 1999, Mahnmal Mitte: eine Kontroverse, page 322:

     (Es gibt kein Hiroshima-Mahnmal in Washington.)

     (There is no monument in Washington [D.C.] to remind people of Hiroshima.)

   • 2010, Dunkle Welten: Bunker, Tunnel und Gewölbe unter Berlin, page 65:

     Ein mit leeren Regalen versehener Raum, in den man vom Bebelplatz durch eine Glasscheibe hinunterschauen kann, erinnert dort als Mahnmal an die Bücherverbrennungen vom 10. Mai 1933.

     A room full of empty bookshelves, which one can look down into from the Bebelplatz via a glass panel, serves as a monument to remind people of the book-burnings of 10 May 1933.

Hypernyms

• Denkmal

Further reading

• “Mahnmal” in Duden online