De Verwoeste Stad (The Destroyed City), Rotterdam Memorial by Ossip Zadkine.

Photo credit:  Comanici, P., 2017.  Source:   city of Rotterdam.

 Rotterdam 1940

The brutal bombing of Rotterdam on the Maas River on May 14, 1940 was Hitler’s unprovoked villainous attack carried out by one hundred bomber airplanes. Creating a sea of flames and rubble, about 600 acres of this historic urban centre were destroyed, killing 900 residents, injuring far more, and obliterating schools hospitals, banks, department stores, consulates, museums, churches, cinemas, 517 restaurants and cafés and thousands of homes. 

In Westminster, Winston Churchill condemned this criminal act saying, “the peaceful city of Rotterdam [has been] the scene of a massacre as hideous and brutal as anything in the Thirty Years War (1618-1648).” 

To commemorate this airborne downpour of terror, sculptor Ossip Zadkine (1888-1867), born in Belarus but living in Paris, created “De Verwoeste Stad” – The Destroyed City – a six-metre tall, monumental bronze sculpture formally dedicated on May 14, 1953 at the city’s 1940 Square.   With arms towards heaven  and a soundless howl of raging grief, this Picasso-esque human figure with a gaping hole where the heart should be, memorializes the place where the heart of Rotterdam (and the Dutch nation) was ripped out in the bombardment.

Hitler’s desired outcome was realized – for a time.  The Netherlands capitulated within a week of fighting.  The royal family and government fled into exile in London and Ottawa, and five years of Nazi occupation, oppression, and increasing  terror followed.   By the time of Liberation Day on May 5^th, 1945 over 237,000 Netherlanders had lost their lives, including 104,000 Jews.  

[see Coates, Ben: Why the Dutch Are Different”; London, Nicholas Brealey Publisher. 2015 p. 137f. and Henri van der Zee, The Hunger Winter. London, U of Nebraska Press.1982, p.305].

Other Cities

The world has had many years to reflect on the catastrophic obliteration of Rotterdam, but also on the many other cities that are noted for being destroyed without mercy – Volgograd (formerly Stalingrad) on the Volga River, London on the Thames and Liverpool on Mersey, Dresden and Hamburg on the Elbe, Cuernevaca on the Oka, Baghdad on the Tigris, Aleppo on the Queiq (or Aleppo River), Hiroshima on the Kyuota, Gaza on the Mediterranean Sea, and too many more.

Ukraine's Cities

Have we learned anything?  It appears not, now as we witness this annihilating evil being carried out  yet again in Ukraine.  The bombs and missiles of Russia’s military do their worst on orders of  the terrorist Putin and his Siloviki (strongmen), the intimate sociopathic circle actively and mercilessly adding new names to the  annihilated cities list. 

Random and targeted acts of murderous destruction are delivered to Mariupoll (430K), Kharkiv (1.4M), Liviv (720K), Kherson (280K), and, of course, Kyiv (2.8M) and who knows where else. Discriminating military target from civilian is yet again on pause – criminal acts of war - in the frenzy to avenge, to destroy, to kill, to annihilate persistent patriots – young, old, and in between, along with  vital institutions like hospitals, schools, government, and churches, industries, and the nation itself. 

Cities are not the only places of culture, religion, education, industry, and community.  But because of their population density, they are the largest producers of these human activities.  So, for murderous war mongers they provide a target to large to pass up. 

Putin knows it.  Like Hitler and Stalin he rages against and persecutes all who resist his imperial fantasies, launching all manner of destruction to tear the heart out of his supposed “enemy”, to kill the spirit.  There are no limits to his evil - not even considering nuclear and biological weapons.

The United Nations Development Program on March 16^th, 2022 reported that according to government estimates, at least $100 billion worth of infrastructure, buildings, roads, bridges, hospitals, schools, and other physical assets have been destroyed. The war has caused 50% of Ukrainian businesses to shut down completely, while the other half are forced to operate at well below capacity. The hole is big and the report doesn't even count the lives lost, maimed, or humans dispossessed of home and hearth.

Heartfelt Resistance

But both at home in Russia and in Ukraine, hearts and spirits are not capitulating to Putin's merciless invasion.  His domestic opponents keep demonstrating, resisting, sending messages on social media, listening (at great risk) to unauthorized voices!  The truth of young Russian P.O.W.s and Alexei Navalny flows like water wherever there are holes and spaces.  Another sentencing by trained seal-like judges adds another nine years imprisonment to his prison exile publicly revealing the need for integrity and honour in the system. 

Putin’s “little brothers” in Ukraine have dared to denounce “big brother's” terror, debunk and fight his imperial designs.  They have refused to surrender Mariupol and any other city he is busily annihilating.  Ukraine has, paradoxically, gained from its paranoid enemy the vital gift of popular unity and a resurgent love of home on distinctively native land.

The United Nations General Assembly has spoken to condemn Putin’s unprovoked invasion and terror.  Will it say and do more when it next meets?    Will the Security Council's vetoes ever be vetoed? Will the General Assembly raise R2P – Responsibility to Protect doctrine – to save Ukraine from Putin's vicious, toxic potion to restore Russian subjugation or to erase the nation city by city. 

R2P is a version of “love your neighbour as yourself” and requires nations not only to care about the way global neighbours are treated, but also to take action to stop criminality like Putin’s Ukrainian invasion.  Will that commandment ever be implemented?

Divine Intention for Cities

The Bible holds before people of faith a vision of the divine intention for cities  It is a particular Good News message for the cities mentioned above, located on a river or sea; all of which have suffered unbelievably.  The raging howl of the Zadkine figure can be recognized in every one of these cities and too many others.  The heart must be restored and the Divine Spirit, who has suffered with all who dwell(t) in each of these cities, must be heard calling for shalom, salaam, mir, peace, vrede, Friede, paix, heddwych, heiwa!!!

 Revelation 22:1-5

“Then the angel showed me the river of life-giving water, clear as crystal, which issued from the throne of God and of the Lamb and flowed down the middle of the streets of the city. On either side of the river grew the trees of life which produce fruit twelve times a year, once each month; their leaves serve as medicine to heal the nations.  There will no longer be any curse. 

The throne of the Almighty and of the Lamb will be there, and God’s subjects will serve faithfully. They will see the Most High face to face, and bear God’s name on their foreheads. Night will be no more. They will need no light from lamps or the sun, for our God will give them light, and they will reign forever.”

  [The Inclusive Bible translation, Boston, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Inc., 2007]

May this vision of the holy city come closer to reality in our time and deliver us all from the evil that causes humans to create iconic memorials to humanity’s persistent inhumanity.