The Memorial Against War and Fascism is located on Helmut Zilk Square (formerly Albertinaplatz), opposite the Albrecht Palace, across from the Vienna Opera.
Previously, the Philipp-Hof stood on this site – a grand residential building that was destroyed in 1945 during the bombing of Vienna. Many people who had taken shelter in the basements were killed and injured. Only a few managed to survive and escape...
In 1988, on the initiative of the Vienna city administration, the "Memorial Against War and Fascism," created from a design by Alfred Hrdlicka, was opened here.
In the foreground of the sculptural composition are the so-called "Gates of Power." They are made of granite that hundreds of prisoners had to carry in the quarry of the Mauthausen concentration camp. The body of a faceless woman giving birth is a symbol of the emergence of a new generation of people in Austria who did not witness the horrors of war. The sculpture "Orpheus Enters Hades" is a memorial to the victims of the bombing and to all those who died in the struggle against Nazism. The statue of a Jew scrubbing the street is a sorrowful reminder of the humiliation and persecution to which Jews were subjected during the war years.
