"Mahnmal für die Opfer des KZ" 1983

Fritz Stein

Memorial for the victims of the concentration camp

Concrete, paint, 4.5m x 1.5m

Human body parts, squeezed into the lower third of a concrete pillar, make the pillar topple slightly. Thus, the artist implies that the atrocities committed by inhuman regimes turn against those regimes and eventually cause them to collapse.

This memorial was erected for the victims of the concentration camp in Neuengamme. It is located near the U-boat bunker Valentin at the Rekumer Siel in Bremen – Blumenthal. Several thousand foreign workers, predominantly citizens of the Soviet Union, Poland and France who were malnourished and kept like cattle lost their lives building the biggest U-boat shipyard of World War II, which, however, was not finished before the end of the war. A memorial inscription in 12 languages is affixed to the base of the memorial.

The inscription in French, Russian, Polish, Danish, English, Greek, Italian, Dutch, Serbo-Croatian, Spanish, Czech, Hungarian:

“From 1943 to 1945, people from many countries were held captive and killed here under the national socialism. With their resistance against the national socialist oppression, they fought for freedom and respect for human dignity.

Location

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