Fred’s Journey
Berchtesgaden Germany
May 26, 1945
On the 26th of May 1945 I passed through the dead city of Munich to reach the idyllic beauty of the Bavarian site of Adolf Hitler’s mountain villa, called the Berghof in the town of Berchtesgaden. Heavily bombed, French troops reached the burned house shortly before VE Day, wrecking and looting the area. My glass comes from a corridor reached by going through the large living room to a stairway, smoke from the fire marking the glass.
When Hitler was living in Munich he used to stay in the hotel, Platterhof, in Berchtesgaden. As his movement grew, more of his associates would go there too until they took over the whole hotel. Later we used that space for teaching.
Artist’s Statement
- Armelle Le Roux
From
Because of their provenance, these shards burned my hands for a long time. Fred and I spent hours discussing the pros and cons of creating a work with them. In the end, we felt that making Hitler real outweighed our discomfort and distaste—because Hitler and the evil he represents are real, and a continuing threat to our world. Today, historical revisionists continue to deny that the Holocaust ever happened, and “ethnic cleansing” has evolved into a not-uncommon tool of war. In this panel, I have tried to show that this was indeed a man, a man who gazed out the windows of his vacation home at the bucolic landscape, a man who had choices. And it is that very humanness that makes his legacy all the more shattering.
Artist Information
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Armelle Le Roux
Atelier Le Roux
3246 Ettie Street
Studio 11 Oakland, CA 94608
Specifications
Number of shards: 12
Dimensions: 21½” × 51½”
Medium: cast sandblasted glass frits, painted, stained and enameled plate glass
