New memorial in the rose garden inaugurated
A few days before the 80th anniversary of the murder of the 20 Jewish children and 28 adult prisoners, the second part of the memorial by sculptor Ulf Petersen was inaugurated by former Second Mayor Christa Goetsch and pianist and BERTINI Prize jury member Axel Zwingenberger in the rose garden of the Bullenhuser Damm memorial site. The patron is the Second Mayor Katharina Fegebank.
This memorial was created from the ‘counterparts’ of the memorial inaugurated at the Brecht School in January 2024. After the mobile exhibition by the association Kinder vom Bullenhuser Damm e.V. visited the Brecht School in 2022 and the school's diversity group was trained as peer guides in a workshop, the pupils wanted to create a permanent memorial at their school to remember the 20 Jewish children.
The Brecht School's diversity group was honoured with the Margot Friedländer Prize for their intensive examination of the history of the children from Bullenhuser Damm and for the project idea of a memorial. The memorial was developed over the course of a year in workshops with the sculptor Ulf Petersen in his art workshop in Eyendorf and at the school and realised by him in steel.
In January 2025, the diversity group was awarded the BERTINI Prize for the project idea and development, with Axel Zwingenberger giving the laudatory speech (article on the memorial here).
The pupils of the Brecht School and trainees from the vocational training centre, who helped to erect the memorial in the rose garden and have also been looking after the rose garden since last year, were also present.
Information about the sculptor: Ulf Petersen was born in Wanne-Eickel in 1958. After training as a pit fitter in coal mining, he began to take a serious interest in painting in 1980. He moved to Hamburg in 1982. His first steel sculptures were created in 1988, followed by exhibitions in various cities in Germany. In 2006, he moved to Eyendorf in the Nordheide, where he founded the Kunstwerkstatt Eyendorf in 2011. Since then, he has worked there as a freelance artist and regularly organises workshops.
