In the night of July 30, 1943, a devastating fire-bomb attack destroyed large parts of Hamburg and started a huge fire-storm. The fire in this neighborhood was so intense that it consumed all the oxygen from the air, causing the people who had taken refuge in one of the underground air raid shelters to die of suffocation.
The sculptor Hildegard Huza, born 1951 in Hamburg, was commissioned to make this monument, which was completed and inaugurated in 1985.
Inscription at the foot of the monument
“In the night of July 30, 1943, three hundred seventy people died in the air raid shelter on the Hamburger Straße during an aerial bombing raid.”
Another inscription at the foot of the monument
“These dead people admonish: Never again Fascism, Never again war.”
Fresh flowers
On the day I took these photos, nearly seventy years after the bombing, someone had put fresh flowers at the foot of the monument. Perhaps they are still doing so today?
My photos in this post are from 2011. I revised the text in 2021.
See more posts on Hamburg, Germany.
See also: Slaughterhouse-Five in Dresden, Germany.
Very interesting! I have to see it!
A very poignant sculpture indeed, especially with those flowers.
Simple sculpture, but really gets the point across well.
When will we ever learn . . . (to quote the song)
It’s too bad that those sentiments haven’t been taken to heart by the rest of the world.
What a moving monument!