Artwork, Memorial, Thought-Provoking

Fourteen monumental sculptures captivate visitors along the historic Death Strip of the former inner-German border between Hesse and Thuringia. The iron sculptures on the Road of Hope are reminiscent of the Iron Curtain, whose length of 1400 meters reflects the 1400 km long former inner-German border. Here, in the so-called Fulda Gap, a Third World War could have broken out, because this border not only separated Germany, but also divided Europe and the world – it was the border between freedom and oppression.

The Point Alpha Foundation has erected the Road of Hope as an impressive symbol to commemorate the resistance against the communist dictatorships in Central and Eastern Europe: Peoples Uprising in East Germany on June 17, 1953, Hungarian Uprising in 1956, Prague Spring in 1968, Solidarity Movement in Poland in the 1980s, and the great peace demonstrations in East Germany in 1989. All of these courageous forms of rebellion were an expression of an unbroken will for freedom and, at the same time, of the firm belief that people can change even the almost impossible if they stand up for their very own convictions with the courage of their despair and are willing to make sacrifices to do so. The impressive biographies of individuals who dared to resist dictatorships also stand for this.

With its 14 stations, the Road of Hope is linked to the Christian Way of the Cross. It encourages the viewer to remember his or her own fate in difficult times and to relate it to the sculptures. Only these individual reflections complete the total work of art, Road of Hope.

Begun in 2009, the work was completed on October 3, 2010. The sculptures were created by the artist Dr. Ulrich Barnickel, born in 1955, who grew up in Weimar, studied sculpture at Burg Giebichenstein in Halle an der Saale and, after several applications for emigration, was expatriated to the Federal Republic in 1985 and now lives near Fulda. Works by Ulrich Barnickel have been shown in numerous exhibitions in Germany and abroad. The art project of the Point Alpha Foundation was supported by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media and the Thuringian Ministry of Culture.