En memòria de Walter Benjamin i dels exiliats europeus dels anys 1933 a 1945, Dani Karavan ha creat el Memorial "Passagen" a la Vila fronterera de Portbou. Fent servir formes abstractes i en íntima relació amb l'aspra natura del Pirineu Català, l'artista ha inscrit al paisatge un signe que permet apropar-se a la situació d'amenaça existencial viscuda pels emigrants al segle XX i que alhora adreça al futur una crida a la tolerància i a la comprensió per damunt de les fronteres. El monument ha estat finançat conjuntament , pels Estats Federals de la República federal d'Alemanya , el Govern Autònom de la Generalitat de Catalunya i l'Ajuntament; l'organització del projecte ha estat cura d'ASKI (Arbeitskreis Selbständiger Kultur Institut e.v. Bonn).

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Benjamin committed suicide in Portbou at the Spanish-French border, while attempting to escape from the Nazis. The party he was with were told they would be denied passage across the border, which would have been a step towards freedom (Benjamin's ultimate goal was the United States). While staying in the Hotel de Francia, he apparently took some morphine pills and died on the night of 27/28 September 1940. The fact that he was buried in the consecrated section of a Roman Catholic cemetery would indicate that his death was not announced as a suicide. The other persons in his party were allowed passage the next day, and safely reached Lisbon on 30 September. A manuscript copy of Benjamin's "On the Concept of History" was passed to Adorno by Hannah Arendt, who crossed the French-Spanish border at Portbou a few months later, and was subsequently published by the Institute for Social Research (temporarily relocated in New York) in 1942.

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