The year 1945 stands for an incisive event in Dresden’s history. After twelve years of Nazi dictatorship and almost six years of war, the entire inner city lay in ruins. Looking back, the catastrophe of 13 February 1945 – the firestorm caused by the allied air raids – was more vivid than any other event of that period. The destruction of Dresden soon became a world-wide symbol of military violence against civilian populations and the loss of cultural treasures.
The art project “Scars of War: Memorial Depots in Dresden” trawls a sea of symbolism to find the truth and, above all, the hidden. It finds wounds in the collective memory and consciousness of Dresden and its inhabitants: Scars of war.
On 13 February 2001 – the anniversary of the destruction of Dresden and fifty-six years after the end of the Second World War – stainless-steel capsules were set into the ground at fifty-six locations in Dresden. These Memorial depots in Dresden mark places of memory. Only their lids remain visible: 6 cm in diameter, engraved with the word ORT (location) and a corresponding number. Each sealed capsule contains a text with the biography of the particular place in relation to the history of Dresden during the Second World War as well as a current photograph. An additional memorial depot has been added every year since then.
This website documents all the memorial depots marked until January 2007. The locations of the memorial depots are listed alphabetically. The names of streets and places are given in the form that was in common use until 8 May 1945. Present-day names – if different – are given in brackets. The documentation below consists of the texts contained in the individual memorial depots, the corresponding photograph as well as the year and the place that was marked.