We invite the citizens of Harburg, and visitors to the town, to add their names here to ours. In doing so we commit ourselves to remain vigilant. As more and more names cover this 12 metre-high lead column, it will gradually be lowered into the ground. One day it will have disappeared completely and the site of the Harburg monument against fascism will be empty.

In the long run, it is only we ourselves who can stand up against injustice.

The remarkable Monument Against Fascism by Esther Shalev-Gerz and Jochen Gerz was inaugurated 40 years ago, in 1986, in Hamburg-Harburg. Today a visitor to Harburg seeking the memorial can only find an informative plaque – presenting small images of its realisation. It is installed next to a shaft, into which the monument in the form of a long column, was progressively sunk in eight stages during the six years of its realisation between 1986 and 1993. It is not a memorial to the victims of fascism; it is a monument against fascism, located in the present.

Today, the monument’s deliberate absence from the site where it once stood, is a reminder that monuments cannot in fact protect us against fascism. It is only by remaining vigilant, forging durable solidarities and – above all – by standing our ground, that we can resist fascism’s resurgence, that is why it is particularly important to revisit it today and ask: what does it mean to live an anti-fascist life in our contemporary political landscape.

In October 2025, the Monument against Fascism site was cleaned and restored in cooperation with Hamburg's Ministry of Culture and Media. Following the restoration, a performative activation and temporary reopening took place in the presence of the artist Esther Shalev-Gerz. There was a warm welcome from City Curator Joanna Warsza and Anna Gröger, a consultant at the Ministry of Culture and Media Hamburg's Department of Visual Arts – Public Art, and the artist Esther Shalev-Gerz. One particularly memorable moment was the multilingual reading of the invitation to the monument, performed by students from the neighbouring Tàimakoo e.V. language café, along with collaborators and friends. During the reading, multiple additional languages were added to the original seven languages of the invitation. After an accordion performance inspired by the monument and dedicated to the tireless anti-fascist activist Esther Bejarano by the artist Candice Breitz, restorer Markus Lohmann shared insights into the restoration process. Esther Shalev-Gerz read a poetic letter to the monument before temporarily reopening the door to the shaft and inviting the curious visitors inside. The gathering concluded with a walk to Eda Aslan’s exhibition Island to Another Island; Poem to Another Poem at the Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof, accompanied by a reading performance titled Notes on Grey and blue, and a communal dinner prepared by Salah Zater and Zater's Community Kitchen.

This event marked the beginning of the series Counter-Monuments of the City Curator Hamburg, which examines how to critically, sensitively, and timely engage with the public sphere within a postmigrant society. Artistic interventions are accompanied by the work of care, restoration and maintenance of the sites together with the Ministry of Culture and Media Hamburg.

• Counterhegemony
• Performativity
• Counterpublics