Lithuanian memorial in Lübeck
The Lithuanians memorial on the Vorwerker cemetery of independent Hanseatic city of Lübeck is an on initiative and costs of at that time about 450-strong Lithuanian community, from which most members claimed no DP status, built and solemnly inaugurated on February 15, 1948 memorial for the war refugees who died there after the Second World War . The tombs law guaranteed by the Federal Republic of the inviolability of the memorial and the assumption of the cost of grave care . When strangers damaged it in 1980 , the cemetery administration had it restored and, when its condition had deteriorated significantly, it was renovated again in 2000 .
The Baltic States were first occupied and then annexed by the Soviet Union at the beginning of the Second World War . The invading Wehrmacht ousted them again and was welcomed by their inhabitants as their liberators . When the Red Army returned to Lithuania in 1944 , numerous Lithuanians fled from it to avoid alleged persecution .
memorial
The memorial in the form of a 3 meter high obelisk made of dark cut stone was designed by the Lithuanian architect Jonas Mulokas , who was living as a displaced person in a DP camp in Augsburg at the time , and was executed by a Lübeck company .
On the front of the pedestal is the Lithuanian inscription : "Lietuva, tėvynė mūs die" which is translated as: "Lithuania, our faithful fatherland". The lower quarter of the obelisk closes with the Lithuanian national coat of arms (Vytis) with a princely crown , which ends above with a stylized Lorraine cross .
The right side of the base bears the dedication: "Your deceased compatriots / The Lithuanians living in exile from Lübeck." Above the base are the Gediminas columns at the height of the coat of arms . The country's state flag had two different sides until World War II. In front, as on the memorial, there was the Vytis ("the pursuer") in the form of a riding "white knight " and behind the columns of Gediminas shown here .
The left side of the base is the only one that has not been labeled. The Lithuanian cross is located on the obelisk at the height of the coat of arms .
The side of the plinth facing away from the viewer bears the words of the poet Faustas Kirša, who lived in Lübeck from 1944 to 1949 : “O God, do not punish the sons with the loss of the fathers earth” in Lithuanian and German. There are over 30 names of Lithuanians who died in Lübeck between 1945 and 1948.
literature
- Wilfried Fick: Cemeteries: Vorwerker Friedhof. 100 years from 1907–2007. Hanseatic City of Lübeck - Department of Planning and Building, Lithuanian Memorial , Lübeck 2006, p. 45.
- Vincas Bartusevičius: Lietuviai Lubeke 1945–2015, Lithuanians in Lübeck 1945–2015 , Vilnius 2015, pp. 80–81.
Web links
supporting documents
- ^ Cemetery plan of the Vorwerker Friedhof ( Memento from June 15, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Kirša also fled Lithuania in 1944. In Lübeck he taught at the Lithuanian grammar school in Lübeck at that time. In 1917 he took part in the Vilnius Conference .
Coordinates: 53 ° 53 ′ 42.5 " N , 10 ° 39 ′ 36.2" E