The last slab of Berlin's Holocaust Memorial was put into place on Wednesday. The event signaled a symbolic end to a 15-year-long battle over the building of the project, which has been tangled in debates about financing, artistic vision and Nazi-era guilt. But backers of the 'Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe' said that they expected differences over its meaning to continue even once it is completely finished. "The fight has not damaged the memorial," said Wolfgang Thierse, the president of the German parliament (Bundestag), standing in front of the 2,711 stark concrete stones that stretched over a plot of land the size of two football fields, close to the new US embassy and the Brandenburg Gate. The monument still requires futher work, including the paving of paths and the completion of an underground information center, before it is officially opened by German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder in May 2005.