Cosmic Garden
Cosmic Garden was a garden on the north-west corner of the Museum of Arts and Crafts in Hamburg .
The square garden had crossed paths that connected the four sides. The intersection of the paths marked a circle with a tree in the center. Square, circle and cross were formulas for the cosmos in late antiquity , which were taken up again in the monastery gardens of the Middle Ages and the architecture of the Renaissance . They represent the harmony of divine creation.
An aerial photo taken by the United States Army Air Forces on August 25, 1944 shows such an ornamental garden directly behind the entrance to the courtyard of Crematorium II of the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp . The recordings were made when it had to be clarified whether the camp complex should be bombed by the Allies .
Such a motif at the center of annihilation seems absurd and incredible. Under the direction of Joachim Caesar , the lavish green spaces of the concentration camp were laid out. Caesar's hedges did more than just beautify the grounds. They should also hide the machinery of the killing and counter a mass panic. Since the garden was located between the entrance gate and the undressing room of the crematorium, one must assume that this unexpectedly appearing garden was their last look at the world for hundreds of thousands of Holocaust victims .
Ronald Jones , whose father served in the unit from which the recordings are made, rebuilt Caesar's Cosmic Garden in 2000 for the citywide outdoor exhibition Field Service . The garden was between the Museum of Arts and Crafts and the railroad tracks. (This place is only about one kilometer away from the Hanover train station on Ericusgraben, which served as the loading station for the deportations .)
According to the model, there was no fountain in the middle of the replica, but a tree, the so-called tree of heaven.
In February 2008 the garden was replaced by a lawn as part of a redesign.
literature
- Isabelle Hofmann: Strolling in the Cosmic Garden . In: Hamburger Morgenpost . March 23, 2000 ( online ).
Web links
- Ronald Jones Cosmic Garden. (No longer available online.) In: hamburg.de. Archived from the original on February 20, 2007 ; accessed on October 13, 2014 .
- Cosmic Garden. In: bildarchiv-hamburg.de. Retrieved October 13, 2014 .