Sculptor Hans Kies has created this bust of Anton Saefkow, the namesake of the Berlin park where I jog almost every day. Saefkow was a resistance fighter against National Socialism and was killed by the Nazis on 4 July 1944. The line inscribed on the base, "Not forgotten. Clubbed, but not refuted" (Nicht vergessen. Niedergeknüppelt, aber Nicht widerlegt) is from Bertolt Brecht's poem "To the Fighters in the Concentration Camps" ("An die Kämpfer in den Konzentrationslagern").
My Dear Friend,
How do we save democracy?
By remembering those who paid with their lives for the fight for freedom.
Because decency demands it. Because we show those fighting for freedom today that if the worst happens, there is at least hope that they will not be forgotten.
May this hope give rise to the courage to stand up for democracy.
