Platz der jüdischen Deportierten

Platz der jüdischen Deportierten stands on Edmund-Siemers-Allee in Hamburg as a memorial to Jewish citizens deported under the Nazi regime. The roughly triangular square contains information boards about the persecutions and transports that began in Hamburg. From nearby assembly points, Jewish residents were taken through the Moorweide towards the Hannoverscher Bahnhof and onward to labour and extermination camps. Auschwitz received two of those transports, in July 1942 and February 1943.

Ulrich Rückriem designed a granite block measuring over four metres high, two metres wide, and seventy centimetres deep. It weighs thirty-five tonnes. Originally divided into seven pieces, the stone was reassembled, leaving fine lines across its otherwise uninscribed surface. Those fractures evoke the broken lives and suffering of Hamburg’s Jewish community, while the form recalls the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. Additional plaques from 1989 add historical context beside the stark block.