Untitled

Untitled, 1989
Wood, stone, cement, 175 x 82 x 85 cm; Ravensbrück Memorial, V4929 L4

This sculpture was not part of the redesigned memorial room when it opened in 1986. It consists of two female arms protruding from a wall which is inscribed with a poem in German: ‘We are the inside of the earth. We are the cry of the winds. In the darkness of forgetting, we burst the concrete heavens with bloody claws, and time will never erase these signs.’ The wall bears the names of Polish prisoners who died in the Ravensbrück concentration camp. The extensive Polish memorial room was redesigned in 1986 by the Association of Fighters for Freedom and Democracy, which was the leading veterans’ organization in the Polish People’s Republic at the time and functioned as an umbrella organization for the ‘clubs’ of former Ravensbrück prisoners in various Polish cities. The Polish Council for the Protection of the Memory of Struggle and Martyrdom was also involved in the design. Multiple additions were made to the room after 1990.

Insa Eschebach (ed.): Ravensbrück. The Cell Building: History and Commemoration, Berlin 2008, pp. 156-161