Trains to Life – Trains to Death
The sculpture in 2009. In the foreground are the five children, and in the background are the two children (see article text).
ArtistFrank Meisler
TypeSculpture
MediumBronze
Dimensions225 cm (89 in)
LocationBerlin, Germany
Coordinates52°31′11″N 13°23′16″E / 52.51986°N 13.38773°E / 52.51986; 13.38773

Trains to Life – Trains to Death is a 2.25 meter outdoor bronze sculpture by architect and sculptor Frank Meisler, installed outside the Friedrichstraße station at the intersection of Georgenstraße and Friedrichstraße, in Berlin, Germany.[1] It is the second in a series of so far five installations also on display near train stations in London, Hamburg, Gdańsk and Hook of Holland.

Description

The sculpture depicts two groups of children. One group is a pair of children symbolizing those saved by the Kindertransport, which brought 10,000 Jewish children from soon-to-be Nazi-occupied countries in Eastern Europe to safety in the United Kingdom and other countries.[2] The other group consists of five children, who represent the 1,600,000 Jewish and non-Jewish children brought by Holocaust trains to the concentration camps and later killed there. Meisler himself was among those saved by the Kindertransport.[3]

History

On January 2023 Pro-Palestinian protestors who illegally protested despite a ban on protests on the New Year eve vandalized the monument spraying graffiti on the statues of children and drawing mosques on their bodies. [4][5]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Trains to Life – Trains to Death". Berlin Tourismus & Kongress GmbH. Retrieved 24 November 2015.
  2. ↑ Trains to Life – Trains to Death, Information Portal to European Sites of Remembrance
  3. ↑ Train to life/Trains to Death, Friedrichstraße, 6 Million Memorials
  4. ↑ "Memorial for Holocaust era children vandalized following pro-Palestinian rally". I24news. 2 January 2024. Retrieved 4 January 2024.
  5. ↑ "Berlin's Kindertransport memorial vandalised after pro-Palestinian rally". www.jewishnews.co.uk. Retrieved 4 January 2024.
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