Thursday, July 8, 2010

Modern Jewish Art in Berlin- More Memorials (Extra)

The following two memorials were created before my selected time period (1990-2010); however, I think that they should be noted here because they have very compelling messages.

Ingeborg Hunzinger’s Block of Women was created in memory of the 1943 Rosenstrasse protest in which non-Jewish wives demanded the return of their Jewish husbands who had been arrested for deportation. The
memorial, created by Ingeborg Hunzinger in the mid-1980s, has many Jewish symbols carved into it, and can now be viewed in a park near the original location of the protest in Berlin.






Once you look closely at this face, you will notice that the eyes are shut. This is not to portray peace and harmony. In fact, it means that during the Nazi era many people kept their eyes shut to their surroundings, the atrocities that were committed around them, and did nothing to stop the Holocaust. This cannot happen again.




Fritz Cremer created his sculpture Müttergruppe (Mothers Group) out of bronze. This piece is in memory to all of the mothers and their children who suffered in Ravensbrück, a concentration camp for women. Over 130,000 women and children were held in the camp, and many tens of thousands were killed, starved to death, or were subjected to horrific medical experiments, including forced abortions. The memorial was officially unveiled in 1965 and is located along the street leading to the site of the former concentration camp.








No comments: