Umschlagplatz monument

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Umschlagplatz (2012)

The Umschlagplatz monument (full name: Mur – Pomnik Umschlagplatz , German Wall Monument Umschlagplatz ) is a memorial in Warsaw on Ulica Stawki, which is located on the site of the former Umschlagplatz from which the German more than 300,000 Jews from the Warsaw ghetto to the Treblinka extermination camp and other concentration camps in the Lublin district deported were.

history

The first memory of the Umschlagplatz in the post-war period (1960)

The memorial was unveiled on April 18, 1988, the day before the 45th anniversary of the outbreak of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising . It was designed by Hanna Szmalenberg and Władysław Klamerus. The shape of the memorial - a white wall four meters high with a black band on the outer wall - is reminiscent of the colors of the Jewish ritual clothing. The rectangular room measuring 20 × 6 meters is surrounded by a wall and symbolizes an open freight car. On the inner wall of the memorial, the 400 Polish and Jewish first names that were most common before the war were carved in alphabetical order - from Aba to Żana. They emphasize the centuries of coexistence between Jews and Poles in Warsaw and the mutual penetration of their cultures and religions. Each name also symbolizes 1000 victims of the Warsaw Ghetto. In the central part of the wall there are four stone tablets with the inscription in Polish, Yiddish , English and Hebrew :

The monument wall surrounds part of the former transshipment point on three sides . In the foreground is the "way of death".
Between 1942 and 1943, more than 300,000 Jews were driven from the Warsaw ghetto to the gas chambers of the Nazi extermination camps via this path of suffering and death.

(Translation)

The gate to the memorial is provided with a semicircular black mazewa- like plaque carved from a block of syenite donated by the Swedish government and the Swedish population . A bas-relief depicting a destroyed forest (in Jewish funerary art a broken tree means premature, violent death) symbolizes the extermination of the Jews. Opposite the main gate is the second gate - a narrow vertical passage crowned with a cut mazewa through which a tree that grew behind the monument after the war can be seen. That symbolizes hope. The axial arrangement of the two gates should be understood as the transition from death to hope in life.

On the side wall of a building bordering the memorial (before the war No. 8, today No. 10) a quote from the Book of Job can be read in Polish, Yiddish and Hebrew: “Oh earth, don't cover my blood and mine Shouting find no resting place! ”(Job 16:18). The inscription “cuts” the contours of two windows and doors. From the edge of Ulica Stawki and between the main part of the monument and the wall of the school there is the path of death, which is slightly inclined. This along the way the Jews were herded to the railway ramp, from where they Treblinka extermination camp deported were. The path was paved with black basalt cubes in the area of ​​the monument.

The syenite block above the entrance with a bas-relief depicting a destroyed forest.

The names of the creators and donors of the monument are on a plaque on the back wall of the monument.

The monument concludes the path of remembrance of the suffering and struggle of the Jews (Trakt Pamięci Męczeństwa i Walki Żydów) , which begins at the intersection of Ulica Anielewicza and Ulica Zamenhofa and runs along Ulica Zamenhofa, Ulica Dubois and Ulica Stawki.

On June 11, 1999, during his seventh pastoral trip to Poland, John Paul II prayed for Jews at this memorial site.

In 2002 the monument, the preserved part of the transshipment point and the two adjacent buildings (before the war Ulica Stawki No. 4/6 and No. 8, today No. 10) were entered in the Register of Cultural Property (rejestr zabytków) .

The names on the wall of the monument

In 2007 and 2008 the monument was completely renovated after it was in very poor condition due to the poor quality of the materials used for its construction. The white marble panels (made of so-called “Biała Marianna” marble) were replaced by a cladding made of gray granite from the village of Zimnik in Lower Silesia (Dolny Śląsk), which is more durable in bad weather . According to the project by Hanna Szmalenberg and Teresa Murak, a green area around the monument was crossed by a lame-gravel path and a narrow, wavy strip with blue-blooming hyssop ( corresponding to the colors of the flag of Israel ) was planted from the intersection of Ulica Stawki and Ulica Dzika .

In memory of the victims of the expulsion from the Warsaw Ghetto in 1942, the memorial march organized by the Jewish Historical Institute has started every year on July 22nd since 2012 .

The first memory of the Umschlagplatz

A quote from the Book of Job that "cuts" the contours of two windows and doors on the side wall of the building.

The present monument replaced the first post-war memory of this place in the form of a sandstone plaque, which was in 1948 on the side wall of a building on Umschlagplatz (from the side of Ulica Stawki). It was provided with the inscription in Polish, Hebrew and Yiddish:

From this location in 1942 and 1943, Nazi mass murderers deported hundreds of thousands of Jews to the extermination camps to be martyred. In honor and memory of Jewish martyrs and fighters.

(Translation)

Nearby

  • Pamięci Męczeństwa i Walki Żydów wing - a stone block commemorating the establishment of the Warsaw Ghetto by the Germans in 1940 (Stawki Street, on the corner with Dzika Street);
  • The building of the Faculty of Psychology of the University of Warsaw (before the war No. 21, today No. 5/7) - an SS department that controlled the transshipment point was located in this building from 1942–1943 .
  • The place of remembrance from the Ulica Dzika side
    In the rear of the property of Zespół Szkół Licealnych i Ekonomicznych No. 1, a part of the ghetto wall was preserved, which defined the border to the transshipment point. In 2014 it was demolished and rebuilt after cleaning the bricks.

literature

  • Henryk Drzewiecki: Pamięci w Warszawie wing. In: Res Publica. 2/1990, pp. 41-44.
  • Wiesław Głębocki: Warszawskie pomniki. Wydawnictwo PTTK "Kraj", 1990, ISBN 83-7005-211-8 , pp. 108-109.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Instytut Pamięci Narodowej - Komisja Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu .: Walka o pamięć: polityczne aspekty obchodów rocznicy powstania w getcie warszawskim 1944-1989 . Instytut Pamięci Narodowej-Komisja Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu, Warszawa 2009, ISBN 978-83-7629-041-6 .
  2. ↑ Karta ewidencji obiektu upamiętniającego . Pomnik - Urząd Dzielnicy Warszawa-Śródmieście, srodmiescie.art.pl
  3. ^ Henryk Drzewiecki: Trakt Pamięci w Warszawie. In: Res Publica. 2/1990. P. 43. In his interpretation of this part of the memorial, the author also refers to the words from the Holy Gospel according to Matthew: “Go through the narrow gate! For wide is the gate and wide is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who walk on it. How narrow is the gate and how narrow is the way that leads to life, and there are few who find it ”(Mt. 7: 13-14).
  4. ↑ The construction of the monument was financed by the City of Warsaw with the financial support of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee .
  5. ↑ Paweł Zuchniewicz: Papieska Warszawa. Centrum Myśli Jana Pawła II, Warszawa 2006, pp. 16-17.
  6. ^ Rejestr zabytków nieruchomych. - Warszawa Narodowy Instytut Dziedzictwa, p. 47.
  7. ↑ Pomnik w nowej skórze. gazeta.pl
  8. ↑ Pomnik gotowy na rocznicę . gazeta.pl
  9. ↑ Tomasz Urzykowski: Marsz Pamięci w rocznicę wywózek . In: Gazeta Stołeczna. P. 4, July 24, 2017.
  10. ↑ Stanislaw Ciepłowski, Napisy pamiątkowe w Warszawie XVII-XX w. Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, Warszawa 1987, p. 210.
  11. ↑ Krystyna Krzyżakowa: Stawki . In: Stolica. 16/1983, p. 12, April 17, 1983.
  12. ↑ Dariusz Bartoszewicz: Jak uratować mur Umschlagplatzu? Grozi zawaleniem. gazeta.pl, May 28, 2013.
  13. ↑ Tomasz Urzykowski: Rozebrali, żeby odbudować. Mur przy Umschlagplatzu do odtworzenia. In: Gazeta Stołeczna. [on-line]. warszawa.gazeta.pl, April 2, 2014.
  14. ↑ Tomasz Urzykowski: Mur przy hub został odbudowany. In: Gazeta Stołeczna. [on-line]. warszawa.gazeta.pl, April 21, 2014.

Coordinates: 52 ° 15 ′ 8.1 ″  N , 20 ° 59 ′ 20.7 ″  E