The Choir of Survivors: Community of the Cross of Nails

In late May 2012, while I was serving as secretary for the Board of Directors of the Community of the Cross of Nails (CCN)–North America, I was asked to participate in Coventry Cathedral’s Golden Jubilee celebration on behalf of the board. This event would mark the anniversary of the May 1962 consecration of the rebuilt cathedral, whose medieval structure had been firebombed into a ruined shell on November 14, 1940. German air raids on manufacturing plants located around the city had begun in August that year, but on this one night, “Operation Moonlight Sonata” destroyed much of what remained of the city center and cost approximately 600 civilian lives.

The first and last time I had stood on those holy grounds was when I was a teenager, in 1976. Much was the same, as one might hope of a preserved 14th-century ruin and its companion rebuilt cathedral, but there were a few changes.

As I wandered the 1962 cathedral and the adjoining ruins, reacquainting myself with a place that had long been dear to my heart, one new piece of artwork especially caught my attention: a nearly 3-meter high, cast metal sculpture labeled Chor der Überlebenden (Choir of Survivors), placed in the ruins near the entrance to the tower.

Seven stylized human figures, set at varying heights, represent the grieving survivors of conflict and, by extension, the loss of those gone forever—many of them children and other noncombatants.

Photo credit: Erin Newton

The cathedral staff were in the throes of last-minute preparations for the next day’s service and festivities, but then-Canon for Reconciliation David Porter paused to give me a brief tutorial. I learned that the sculpture, the work of German artist and Dresden native Helmut Heinze, had only just been unveiled on May 20, a week before the Jubilee observance. It was dedicated to all civilians killed or injured during aerial bombings, on both sides of wars, past, present, and future. 

The Dresden connection is not coincidental. Much of Dresden—also a medieval jewel—was flattened by British and American high-explosive and incendiary bombing in February 1945, resulting in approximately 20,000 deaths, mostly civilians.

The Coventry Peace Trail online resource states that the artwork “was donated to Coventry Cathedral by the Frauenkirke Foundation of Dresden and installed in the ruins as a sign of reconciliation…. as the ruins were rededicated to be a permanent memorial to civilians killed, injured or traumatised by war and violent conflict.”

Participating in the sculpture dedication ceremony on May 20, 2012, were a choir and delegation from Dresden, including the Bishop of Saxony. Civilians killed by Allied aerial bombing of Germany’s cities were specifically memorialized, “making this sculpture the first permanent memorial to German civilians within the grounds of the Cathedral” [Peace Trail].

The Chor der Überlebenden sculpture has been much on my mind in recent months. In Ukraine, Israel, Palestine, and elsewhere, lethal military technology has advanced, with drones and exploding rockets often taking the place of the airplanes used to such devastating effect by both sides in World War II. The result is the same: infants and children, young people, working-age adults, hospital patients, the elderly—have had their families torn apart and their homes and workplaces decimated, for reasons they may not understand and cannot control.

Was there ever, in any time or place, a war that actually solved anything? That did not leave behind years, decades, or centuries of mistrust and hatred of “the other”?

What message can the symbolism of this sculpture offer to us for this Advent season, when peace often seems so far away? We may find it helpful to cling to, and to act on when we can, the three guiding principles of the Community of the Cross of Nails: healing the wounds of history, learning to live with difference and celebrate diversity, and building a culture of justice and peace.

“Reconciliation can only be said to have truly happened when we are able to memorialise the suffering of our enemies.” —David Porter, former Canon for Peace and Reconciliation, Cathedral Church of St. Michael, Coventry, England, May 2012

-Erin Newton