The Germans bomded Rotterdam on May 14th 1940. These big lights did light up the sky to mark the border of where the firestorm did stop. Photographed in 2007, location Heliport.
From the archives: De Brandgrens – the firestorm
Tag: 1940
Not far from his home
I took this photo not far from where he was born, reading his book, executed in bronze, Erasmus. The oldest statue in the Netherlands was on the Grotemarkt before 1940. Unscathed from the bombing and hidden until May 1945, its then was placed on the Coolsingel. When the metro was built in 1963, it was relocated to the Grotekerkplein. The Erasmus statue is in a straight line to his birth house.
Notes:
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- In Brooklyn on the square of the Erasmus Hall High School is a life-size copy of this statue by Simon Miedema.
- “For a few centuries it is actually the only public statue in the Netherlands that has not belonged to a warrior, prince or statesman, nor to a poet, but to a scholar, one who still had quite neglected that homeland.” Quote by Johan Huizinga, Dutch Historian
Confinement, Monument to all fallen 1940-1945
I photographed this square before and from a different angle. These days its empty but now I could take a picture of this monument; It commemorates all Rotterdam men and women who gave their lives in World War II in the struggle for liberation of the Netherlands. The monument of Mari Andriessen was unveiled on May 4, 1957 by Princess Wilhelmina on the Stadhuisplein. The bronze artwork consists of four persons: a woman looking back, a child and a man looking at each other and a man with a spade looking forward. The figures symbolize the connection between past and future: the suffering from the past and confidence in the future.
May 4, it will be 75 years since the Netherlands was liberated. This year it is celebrated (too) quietly and commemorated due to circumstances. But we should never forget it …
Source details monument: Wikipedia