Look on my works ...and despair

Tony Barber discusses how differing societies cope with controversial statues

The World Today Updated 27 September 2020 Published 1 August 2020 3 minute READ

Tony Barber

Europe Editor, Financial Times

Outside Friedrichstrasse station in Berlin, where I live, stands a bronze sculpture known as the Trains to Life – Trains to Death memorial. Unveiled in 2008, it depicts the fate of seven Jewish children living under the Nazi dictatorship. Five face east, where they were to die in concentration camps. Two face west, where they were part of the Kindertransport operation that rescued thousands of Jewish children and sent them to Britain.

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