The Blitz Memorial is found at the site of the Hermitage Riverside Memorial Garden, which was developed to honour the memory of the tens of thousands of people who lived in East London who were killed or injured in the bombings that blitzed the east end of London during World War II.[1] This memorial garden is located in the Tower Hamlets on Wapping High Street in the town of Wapping within the Great London area,[2] which is where the Hermitage Wharf had been located before it was decimated in 1940 by a firebomb.[3] The memorial garden includes an upright metal rectangular sculpture that has a cut-out of a dove along with a large.[4] Designed by Wendy Taylor, and installed in July, 2008, the dove sculpture has a contemporary look while the sculpture is set on a more traditional low square cement plinth that has the words "Memorial to the civilians of East London" and "2^nd World War 1939-45" inscribed and repeated on opposite sides in gold lettering.[5] Taylor's dove is intended to be inspirational and represent hope as opposed to sorrow.[6] As the large plaque describes, the garden and sculpture were developed to remember the suffering and loss experienced by the residents of East London where the incessant nightly bombings by the Germans, or "Blitzrieg" which means "lightening war", destroyed over a million homes, destroyed the docks, warehouses, and industry of the Port of London, and killed the many thousands of London's poorest families who lived in the crowded East and South East districts of London.[7] These people of East London persevered despite the nightly bombings and the losses they suffered at the hands of the Germans.

[1] "Sculpture: Civilian Deaths in WW2 – Blitz East London," London Remembers Aiming to Capture All Memorials in London, https://www.londonremembers.com/memorials/civilian-deaths-in-ww2-blitz-east-london.

[2] "Memorial East London Blitz Casualties," Imperial War Museums, https://www.iwm.org.uk/memorials/item/memorial/63346.

[3] William Wallace, "Secret London River Thames Garden." London is Cool A Blog about Life in London,

https://londoniscool.com/secret-london-river-thames-garden.

[4] "Sculpture: Civilian Deaths in WW2 – Blitz East London," London Remembers.

[5] "Sculpture: Civilian Deaths in WW2 – Blitz East London," London Remembers.

[6] "Sculpture: Civilian Deaths in WW2 – Blitz East London," London Remembers.

[7] "Sculpture: Civilian Deaths in WW2 – Blitz East London," London Remembers.

List of Sources

Wallace, William. "Secret London River Thames Garden." London is Cool A Blog about Life in London. https://londoniscool.com/secret-london-river-thames-garden.

"Memorial East London Blitz Casualties." Imperial War Museums. https://www.iwm.org.uk/memorials/item/memorial/63346.

"Sculpture: Civilian Deaths in WW2 – Blitz East London." London Remembers Aiming to Capture All Memorials in London.

https://www.londonremembers.com/memorials/civilian-deaths-in-ww2-blitz-east-london.

The "Blitz" is the name given to two periods of extreme aerial bombings of Britain that took place in 1940-41 and again in 1944-45. These blitzes killed and injured tens of thousands of Londoners and destroyed the homes of 1,400,000 people,[1] seriously altering the lives of Londoners, particularly children. Many Londoners left the city for safer parts of the country and the Evening Telegraph reported that as of July 20, 1944 170,000 women and children had been evacuated from London.[2] However, many people had to remain in the city where entire neighbourhoods were demolished and became scarred with craters from the bombs.[3] Raids took place at night and during the day which disrupted the children's school, and children had to practice wearing gas masks to protect against a poisonous gas attack by the Germans.[4] People took refuge in tiny, cramped backyard shelters made of corrugated metal, or stayed under the arches, or ran to the underground tube stations.[5] Coal and food was rationed and one child remembers lining up for hours for one banana.[6] While some children of the Blitz found it fun to play hide and seek among the bombed houses and made a game of collecting pieces of bombs, when they reflect back on their wartime childhood they realize how terrible it was.[7] These memories provide a graphic view of how the nightly bombings of the blitz altered the lives of wartime children in London forever, while also demonstrating how the English 'soldiered on.' An article published in the Times on June 19, 1946, acknowledges the "indomitable spirit" demonstrated by the people of East London who "endured the worst of Hitler's blitz" while keeping up their morale even as their homes were wrecked.[8]

[1] David Ian Hanauer, "Experiencing the Blitz: A Poetic Representation of a Childhood in Wartime London," Qualitative Inquiry, no. 5 (2014): 585.

[2] "170,000 Women and Children Evacuated from London," Evening Telegraph, July 20, 1944, 8. British Library Newspapers (accessed March 25, 2019), http://tinyurl.galegroup.com.proxy.library.brocku.....

[3] Hanauer, "Experiencing the Blitz," Qualitative Inquiry, 585.

[4] Robert Westall, Children of the Blitz: Memories of Wartime Childhood, (Middlesex: Penguin Books Ltd., 1986): 81-104.

[5] "The 1943 Bethnal Green Tube Shelter Disaster: An Oral History," Bethnal Green Memorial Project, 14-23.

[6] Westall, Children of the Blitz: Memories of Wartime Childhood, 149-159.

[7] "The 1943 Bethnal Green Tube Shelter Disaster: An Oral History," Bethnal Green Memorial Project, 20.

[8] "In the Suburbs," Times, June 10, 1946, 11, The Times Digital Archive (accessed March 25, 2019), http://tinyurl.galegroup.com.proxy.library.brocku.....

List of Sources:

"170,000 Women and Children Evacuated from London." Evening Telegraph, July 20, 1944, 8. British Library Newspapers (accessed March 25, 2019). http://tinyurl.galegroup.com.proxy.library.brocku.ca/tinyurl/9ZrZCX.

Hanauer, David Ian. "Experiencing the Blitz: A Poetic Representation of a Childhood in Wartime London." Qualitative Inquiry, no. 5 (2014): 584-599.

"In the Suburbs." The Times, 10 June 1946, p. 11. The Times Digital Archive, http://tinyurl.galegroup.com.proxy.library.brocku.ca/tinyurl/9Dh4s8. (Accessed March 25, 2019).

"Sculpture: Civilian Deaths in WW2 – Blitz East London." London Remembers Aiming to Capture All Memorials in London. https://www.londonremembers.com/memorials/civilian-deaths-in-ww2-blitz-east-london (accessed March 26, 2019).

Westall, Robert. Children of the Blitz: Memories of Wartime Childhood. (Middlesex: Penguin Books Ltd., 1986).

Although the walking tour's primary focus was on growing up in London during the Second World War, the tour reveals that all Londoners, regardless of age faced hardships. However, the experiences of children reveal economic status and ethnicity largely effected everyday life in London during the Blitz. The tour highlights that no child was exempt from hardship. Rather, hardships were encountered differently, caused by either evacuation from the city or lack thereof, as well as food rationing or immigration to London. Children living in the East End, which was predominantly a working-class district, experienced the worst of the Blitz as bombing raids largely targeted industrial centers. In addition, children from the East End often remained in London with their family as costs associated with countryside evacuations were too expensive. Furthermore, the memorial sites on the tour allow visitors to learn and discuss the consequences that World War Two had on London.

The silence that had been imposed on survivors, such as those of the Bethnal Green Tube Station disaster can finally end as the memorial works to enlighten visitors of the tragedy. Similarly, the Kindertransport memorial gives voice to the experiences of the young Jewish children who arrived unaccompanied at Liverpool Street Station to be placed in foster care. Finally, the Blitz Memorial commemorates all those in the East London district who experienced loss of life, limb, liberty, and privacy as they tried to shelter themselves from the nightly bombings of the Blitzkrieg. Overall, the hope for this tour was to challenge historical controversies, including the "Myth of the Blitz," as Londoners were not indifferent to the destruction occurring around them and they did not passively accept universal sacrifices. Ultimately, the Blitz did not eliminate class and ethnic divisions as previously thought, instead the war and government policies reinforced division and fostered negative public attitudes towards British authorities.

Longden, Sean. Blitz Kids: The Children's War Against Hitler. London: Constable, 2012.

Salisbury, Harriet. The War on Our Doorstep: London's East End and How the Blitz Changed it Forever. London: Ebury Press, 2012.

Westall, Robert. Children of the Blitz: Memories of Wartime Childhood. New York: Viking Adult Publishing, 1986.