• Rosenstraße Memorial
Two memorials in Berlin's Rosenstraße serve as reminders of the unique, non-violent protest against the deportation of Jews from Berlin in March 1943.
Image: Berlin, 2011, Historical photo on the Litfaß column on Rosenstraße, Stiftung Denkmal
Berlin, 2011, Historical photo on the Litfaß column on Rosenstraße, Stiftung Denkmal

Image: Berlin, 2011, Litfaß column on Rosenstraße, Stiftung Denkmal
Berlin, 2011, Litfaß column on Rosenstraße, Stiftung Denkmal
The Reich Main Security Office (RSHA) planned to conduct a wave of arrests in 1943 among Jews in Berlin with the aim of making the city »judenrein« – free of Jews. Those Jews still remaining in the city had not yet been deported because they were either deemed »crucial to the war efforts« due to their deployment in forced labour, or they lived in »mixed marriages« or they were classified as »half-Jews« by the racial laws. On Saturday, February 27, 1943, the »Fabrikaktion« was begun. The Gestapo and the SS arrested over 11,000 Jews on that day and in the days that followed. Prior to deportation, the prisoners were brought to make-shift transit camps. Between 1,500 and 2,500 Jewish men who were in »mixed marriages« or were considered »half-Jews« were brought to the former social administration building of the Jewish community in Rosenstraße. The prisoners were shown support – an event unprecedented in the »Third Reich« – through a protest outside the building. In the course of the week, non-Jewish wives, family members and friends gathered, demanding the release of the imprisoned men. Even threats by the Gestapo and the SS remained without effect. The protesters in Rosenstraße would not let themselves be intimidated and returned again and again to the site of protest even after being driven away by the police. After several days, the Gestapo began releasing some few hundred prisoners, after carefully investigating their cases.
Those released were mostly deployed in dangerous and physically exhausting forced labour. Jewish press photographer Abraham Pisarek, for example, was deployed in what was deemed a suicide mission as he had to clear furniture from houses containing unexploded bombs.
Image: Berlin, 2011, Historical photo on the Litfaß column on Rosenstraße, Stiftung Denkmal
Berlin, 2011, Historical photo on the Litfaß column on Rosenstraße, Stiftung Denkmal

Image: Berlin, 2011, Litfaß column on Rosenstraße, Stiftung Denkmal
Berlin, 2011, Litfaß column on Rosenstraße, Stiftung Denkmal
Despite the protests, most of the incarcerated Jewish men and youths were eventually deported to the concentration and extermination camps in the east. Over 8,500 Jewish men were deported following the »Fabrikaktion«.
Image: Berlin, 2008, Detailed view of the monument on Rosenstraße, Stiftung Denkmal, Anne Bobzin
Berlin, 2008, Detailed view of the monument on Rosenstraße, Stiftung Denkmal, Anne Bobzin

Image: Berlin, 2011, Rosenstraße today, the Marienkirche church in the background, Stiftung Denkmal
Berlin, 2011, Rosenstraße today, the Marienkirche church in the background, Stiftung Denkmal
Until the end of the 1980s, the public knew little about the women's protests in Rosenstraße. In 1989, Nathan Stolzfuss reported on the 1943 protests in the weekly newspaper »Die Zeit«. A project group was founded and it initiated the erection of a memorial on Rosenstraße in the form of a »Litfaß column« (advertising column). It is located on the same site on which a similar column stood in 1943. Ruth Gross-Pisarek, a witness of the protests, recollects that she hid behind one of the columns while trying to make eye-contact with her father. Press photographer Abraham Pisarek was among those incarcerated at Rosenstraße who were released as a result of the protests; he took pictures of the historic Litfaß column and of the administrative building of the Jewish community which served as a prison. The Litfaß columns today – in the meantime a further, identical Litfaß column has been set up a few metres away – present information about the events which took place in February and March 1943.
In 1995, the Berlin Senate enabled the erection of the »Block of Women« ensemble of monuments by artist Ingeborg Hunzinger. She had designed the monuments already in the 1980s, however, they could not yet be erected in the GDR. The group of sculptures is located on the site of the former Jewish administrative building in which the Gestapo held the men captive.
Image: Berlin, 2011, Litfaß column at the beginning of Rosenstraße, Stiftung Denkmal
Berlin, 2011, Litfaß column at the beginning of Rosenstraße, Stiftung Denkmal

Image: Berlin, 2008, Monument by Ingeborg Hunzinger, Stiftung Denkmal, Anne Bobzin
Berlin, 2008, Monument by Ingeborg Hunzinger, Stiftung Denkmal, Anne Bobzin
Name
Denkmal Rosenstraße
Address
Rosenstraße 1-2
10178 Berlin
Open
Always accessible