Jan Wolkers talks about the memorial
To create a memorial in a place where an urn containing the ashes of Auschwitz victims rests on Dutch soil seems like an impossible task. How can you find a way to remember a crime that you feel will not be erased even if our planet will dissolve in the
universe in two or two thousand centuries. You break your head wondering whether you can create an image that will be able to reflect the shame and grief. You look at the sky and you can't comprehend that this same blue sky stood above this horror as
peaceful and unmoved as if it stands above a meadow with flowers. And in a vision of justice you see the blue sky above as it bursts, as if the horror that took place on earth below has forever damaged it. That is how I came up with the idea of placing
cracked glass on the small plot of earth just above the urn. In this place the sky will never be able to be reflected purely.
Jan Wolkers (1925-2007), 1977