Pietá by Käthe Kollwitz

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Pietá by Käthe Kollwitz. This enlarged version of Käthe Kollwitz's "Mother with dead son" was done by Harald Haake and stands in the middle of the "Neue Wache," a building rich in German history. The "Neue Wache" was built by Karl Friedrich Schinkel from 1816 to 1818 for the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm III. The royal guard was housed here from 1818 to 1918. The Prussian government redesigned the place in 1931. Heinrich Tessenow created a memorial there for those fallen in World War I. In the center of the contemplative room stood a granite block with an oak wreath cast in silver. Just before the end of the Second World War, the "Wache" was bombed and badly damaged. Since 1960, the restored building served the German Democratic Republic as a memorial of the victims of fascism and militarism and as a warning for future generations. The remains of an unknown soldier and concentration camp prisoner were interred there in 1969. They are surrounded by earth from battlefields of the Second World War and concentration camps. A plaque on the building reads:

We remember The peoples who suffered from war. We remember their citizens who were persecuted and lost their lives. We remember the fallen of the World Wars. We remember the innocent who through war and consequences of war at home through incarceration in and expulsion from their homeland lost their lives. We remember the millions of murdered Jews. We remember the murdered Sinti and Roma. We remember all those who were murdered because of their descent, their homosexuality or because of sickness or weakness. We remember all those whose right to live was denied.

We remember the people who had to die because of their political or religious convictions. We remember all who were victims of tyranny and died innocent. We remember the women and men who in resistance to the tyranny sacrificed their lives. We honor all those who accepted death rather than bend their conscience. We remember the women and men who were persecuted and murdered because they opposed totalitarian dictatorship after 1945. [Translated from the German by Brendan Calandra]

Still photographs. Click on a thumbnail image below to view the full photograph.

	Exterior of the Neue Wache.
	The Pietá is located in the middle of the Neue Wache's stark interior.
	Pietá by Käthe Kollwitz.
	Pietá by Käthe Kollwitz.
	Pietá by Käthe Kollwitz.
	Pietá by Käthe Kollwitz.
	Pietá by Käthe Kollwitz.
	Pietá by Käthe Kollwitz.
	Pietá by Käthe Kollwitz.
	Pietá by Käthe Kollwitz.

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A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust
Produced by the Florida Center for Instructional Technology,
College of Education, University of South Florida © 2005.