Synagogue Memorial by Sebastian Helm and Anna Dilengite, 2001
Gottschedstraße / Zentralstraße
Leipzig, September 2024
“On the site of the Moorish synagogue stands today the Holocaust memorial. This powerful installation is made of 140 empty bronze chairs, representing the 14.000 Jews who once prayed there and outlining the floor plan of the destroyed synagogue.” (Leipzig, The Cultural Guide to Jewish Europe) “The site of the former synagogue had served as a parking lot and the site of a transformer station for decades. After the city of Leipzig acquired the property only in 1997, it launched a Saxony-wide, anonymous competition in 1999 in collaboration with the Jewish Religious Community, inviting ten international artists. The design by Leipzig artists Sebastian Helm and Anna Dilengite, which had only made it onto the shortlist for implementation, was ultimately chosen. Following a majority vote by the Leipzig City Council in October 2000, the site was transformed into a large-scale memorial. Inaugurated on June 24, 2001, the memorial traces the floor plan of the destroyed building on an area of 12 × 12 meters. The interior is a field of 140 empty bronze chairs, intended to convey a tangible sense of the loss of the architectural shell. The western boundary of the site is formed by a wall of exposed concrete, with texts in English, German, and Hebrew on three bronze plaques each.” (Große Gemeindesynagoge, Wikipedia)
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