Memorial to the Shoah victims from Luxembourg

In 1965, the association Amicale des Rescapés et des familles de disparus d’Auschwitz is founded. In 1966, the association proposes the erection of a memorial plaque in Cinqfontaines in memory of the victims of the Shoah from Luxembourg. A memorial is finally erected and inaugurated on 6 July 1969 in the presence of representatives of the Luxembourg government, the Chief Rabbi of Luxembourg and the Bishop. It is unveiled by Grand Duke Jean.

The monument was designed by the Luxembourg artist and former concentration camp inmate Lucien Wercollier (1908-2002). It is made of stone blocks from the former concentration camp Natzweiler-Struthof (Alsace, France), forming an asymmetrical column to look unfinished, as if it had been painstakingly built by a weakened concentration camp inmate. Each block of the column is engraved with a Hebrew letter: taw (ת), nun (נ), sade (צ), beth (ב) and he (ה). These are the initials of the following sentence from the Book of Samuel: “So shall the soul of my lord be bound in the bundle of the living with the Lord thy God.” (Samuel I, 25,29)

Every year on the first Sunday of July, a commemoration of the victims of the Shoah from Luxembourg is held in Cinqfontaines, organized by the Comité Auschwitz Luxembourg (successor association of the Amicale des Rescapés et des familles de disparus d’Auschwitz).