statue The Destroyed City by Ossip Zadkine

The bronze figure on the Plein 1940 stands seven meters tall with its torso torn open and arms reaching toward the sky. Sculptor Ossip Zadkine created this monument to represent Rotterdam after the German air raid of nineteen forty, which erased the city center in fifteen minutes. He shaped the hollow chest to mimic the gaping wound left in the urban landscape. It remains the only survivor of the old city square that still keeps its place near the water.