Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as Shoah, refers to the systematic persecution and genocide of Jews by the Nazis and their allies before and during the Second World War. Roma, Sinti, homosexuals, and the disabled are also prosecuted and murdered on a large scale.
For this purpose, special extermination camps, such as Auschwitz-Birkenau, Sobibor, and Treblinka, are being built mainly in Eastern Poland. Once there, the Jews and other civilians arrested during raids are gassed almost without exception.
Victims: an estimated 5.5, 7.6 million citizens
‘Victim‘
Location: Germany, Dusseldorf, Mühlenstraße 29, Memorial Dusseldorf, bombshelter
Design: Thomas Duttenhöfer
Unveiling: 1988
Photo: Mahn- und Gedenkstätte Düsseldorf
The statue stands in the building that housed the Gestapo (secret state police) and later the SS (a paramilitary organization within the Nazi party) at the time. They recruit 40,000 forced laborers for the war industry in this region. Political and racial ‘enemies of the people’ are detained, interrogated, and mostly tortured here before being deported to concentration or extermination camps. Of the Jews from Düsseldorf who did not flee, only 60 of them return after the war, which is 2%.
‘The Vélodrome d’Hiver Raid’
Location: France, Paris, Quai de Grenelle 1
Design: Walter Spitzer
Unveiling: 1994
Photo: Samuel Gruber’s Jewish Art & Monuments
In the great roundup of 16 and 17 July 1942, the Paris police round up more than 12,000 Parisian Jews, including 4,000 children, by order of the Germans. They are first detained at the Vélodrome d’Hiver and then transferred to the Drancy, Beaune-la-Rolande, and Pithiviers concentration camps, from where they are deported to the extermination camps. Only a few of them survive this. The monument depicts a Jewish family waiting for transport.
‘Women’s protest Rosenstraße’
Inscription: ‘The Power of Civil Disobedience | the Power of Love | overcome the Power of Dictatorship
Let our Husbands Free | Women stood here to | Overcome Death | Jewish Husbands were Free
Location Germany, Berlin, Rosenstraße
Design: Ingeborg Hunzinger
Unveiling: 1995
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
On February 27, 1943, approximately 2,500 half-Jewish and intermarried Jewish men are arrested in Berlin and gathered in a building on Rosenstrasse to be deported. Their wives start a protest, and more and more women join in. Eventually, the deportation is called off. Until the end of the war, the men are forced into labor. Out of the 175,000 Berlin Jews, including those in hiding and Jews from mixed marriages, 8,000 survive the war.
Monument to the heroes of the ghetto uprising
Location: Poland, Warschau, ul. Zamenhofa, ul. Anielewicza
Design: Nathan Rapaport
Unveiling: 1948
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
From 1940, Polish Jews are forcibly moved to ghettos in their cities. In Warsaw, 500,000 people are rounded up in this gated city district. From there, the Nazis deport them en masse to the Treblinka extermination camp. When this gets through to the remaining 40,000 – 50,000 Jews, they revolt. Initially successful, the destruction of the ghetto ensues on 19 April 1943. About 7,000 are killed in the uprising. The remaining 40,000 Jews are murdered in Treblinka.
Monument to the Jewish victims of fascism
Location: Germany, Berlin, Große Hamburger Straße, in front oft he cemetary
Design: Will Lammert
Unveiling: 1985
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Sculptor Lammert works for a long time on a monument to the Ravensbrück concentration camp, but he dies prematurely. One part is finished and, in consultation with his son, is placed in Berlin in 1984. Some 132,000 women and children, 20,000 men, and 1,000 teenage girls from 40 countries have been imprisoned in Ravensbrück between 1939 and 1945. 55,000 of them are from Berlin. More than 90,000 prisoners die from executions, starvation, or disease, or as a result of medical experiments.
Holocaust monument Danube Promenade
Location: Hungary, Budapest, Danube promenade
Design: Can Togay en Gyula Pauer
Unveiling: 2005
Photo: Wikimedia Common
The 40-metre-long monument on the quay includes 60 pairs of iron shoes. In 1944 and 1945, National Socialist Arrow Crossers brought a total of about 800 Jews to the banks of the Danube. They are ordered to take off their shoes and stand facing the water. Once shot, they fall into the river.