Himmel, herzgrau, muß nah sein (Sky, heart-grey, must be close)
2013
Memorial to the Jewish victims of deportation from Steubenweg 36, Hamburg-Blankenese
Larch wood, zinc sheet metal
4.80 m × 4.80 m × 5.30 m, side length 2.50 m
Base made of Belgian bluestone
Located at Grotiusweg 36, Hamburg-Blankenese,
Title line courtesy of S. Fischer Verlage, Frankfurt on the Main, from “Sprachgitter” (trans. as Speech-Grille / Language Mesh), © 1959
The memorial adjacent to the house at Grotiusweg 36, formerly Steubenweg, commemorates the deportations – the last of which took place on 19 July 1942 – and the deaths of seventeen persecuted Jews who had been forcibly housed there.
Inspired by the idea of the forest surrounding the building as a silent witness and a notion of the vulnerability of its inhabitants, the walls of the hexagonal pavilion are constructed of slats in a lattice-like pattern. The interior is permeated by its surroundings, and the likewise hexagonal roof opens up to the treetops and the sky.
Seventeen rotating slats are inscribed with the names and biographical details of the deceased. One plank bears the title of the memorial: “Himmel, herzgrau, muß nah sein” (Heaven, heart-grey, must be near), a line from the poem “Sprachgitter” (trans. as Speech-Grille / Language Mesh) by Paul Celan. Celan’s eponymous collection of poems from 1959 represents one of the first consistent attempts in German literature to articulate the rupture in the history, language and culture of Germany caused by the Shoah.