Plein 1940

Plein 1940 is a wide, open square distinguished by a six-meter-tall bronze sculpture of a human figure with arms reaching toward the sky and a gaping void in its chest. This memorial, titled The Destroyed City, was created by the French sculptor Ossip Zadkine and unveiled on May 5, 1953. It serves as a tribute to the victims of the aerial bombardment of Rotterdam on May 14, 1940, a fifteen-minute attack that obliterated the medieval city center and left tens of thousands of residents homeless.