Memorial for the victims of the German occupation, Memorial in Liberty Square, Budapest, Hungary
The Memorial for the Victims of the German Occupation stands in Liberty Square as a seven-metre-high gate of thirteen partly broken columns topped by a tympanum, with the inscription "A német megszállás áldozatainak emlékműve" across its front. Inside, on the stump of a fluted column, stands the Archangel Gabriel with closed eyes and outstretched arms; one wing is missing, replaced by the falling end of drapery wound around his body. His right hand holds the globus cruciger, slipping from his fingers as the eagle above, its talons extended, prepares to strike.
The memorial was approved by a government decree of 31 December 2013 and built overnight on 20/21 July 2014 under police guard, without an inauguration. Sculptor Péter Párkányi Raab based the composition on the Millennium Monument on Heroes' Square. Plans published in January 2014 drew protests from Mazsihisz and others, who argued it presents Hungary as an innocent victim of the 1944 occupation.
Critics say the monument absolves Hungarians of complicity in the Holocaust, so many people lay improvised tributes to Holocaust victims along its edge. During the 2014 protests, demonstrators built an "Eleven Monument" of photographs, copies of wartime letters and pebbles, the Jewish custom of remembrance. The sculptor, Péter Párkányi Raab, calls the work a paraphrase of the Millennium Monument on Heroes' Square and stresses it is not a Holocaust memorial.
The monument stands in Liberty Square in Budapest's District V, on the side toward the fountain; the figures face the square and can be walked around. The bronze surfaces carry an anti-graffiti coating applied to deter vandalism. Improvised tributes to Holocaust victims are laid along the edge of the site, so the ground at the base is often covered.
The sculptor, Péter Párkányi Raab, called the small globus cruciger slipping from Gabriel's fingers the main protagonist of the work, not the eagle. He also stated the composition is not a Holocaust memorial and that the bird is not the imperial eagle its critics describe.
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