Monument to the 'Children of Bullenhuser Damm'
In 1991, the Hamburg-Lokstedt local administrative committee voted to name the streets in the new Schnelsen-Burgwedel housing development after the children of Bullenhuser Damm who were murdered.
Murders
In November 1944, twenty Jewish girls and boys between the ages of four and twelve were taken from Auschwitz to the Neuengamme concentration camp, where they were subjected to medical experiments. On the night of 20 April 1945, SS men hung the children to cover up evidence of the crimes from the approaching Allied forces. The victims included a ten-year-old Polish boy named Roman Zeller.
Commemoration
A monument by the Russian artist Leonid Mogilevski (born 1931) was erected in memory of the children on the square named after Roman Zeller. The monument was dedicated on 13 July 2001 and consists of a stele with a bronze relief on one side. The relief depicts the faces of the twenty murdered children, and their names are listed underneath. A panel on the back of the stele explains what happened and notes that the monument was erected on the initiative of local residents who financed the artwork.
Each year on 20 April, a public memorial ceremony is held at the monument by the local church parish, local school and other community institutions. Many pupils take every year part at the ceremony with own inputs.
In occasion of the anniversary, on 19 April 2000 a relief to commemorate the murdered children on Christophorushaus/Schnelsen church was inaugurated. The dutch artist Truus Wilders (1944–2019) worked with stone and bronze.
Contact
Mahnmal Burgwedel e.V.
www.kircheschnelsen.de