Part of the war memorial

Albetinaplatz is in the heart of Vienna and is famous for the Albertina, which houses one the largest collections of prints in the world with about 65,000 watercolours, 70,000 prints and one million old masters' drawings. The building itself is one of the last original parts of the old city's fortifications, the Augustinian Bastion. For a time, it was the residence of Empress Maria-Theresa's daughter, Maria-Christina and her husband, Prince Albert of Sachsen-Teschen, hence the name of the museum and square.

To one side of the square is an open space, on which a memorial to the war has been erected. During the last part of the war, Vienna was heavily bombed. During one raid, about 400 people took shelter in the cellars of a building on the site. Unfortunately the building took a direct hit and nothing and no one was left to find.

Out of respect, the site was not built on and a modernistic war memorial was placed there to commemorate the so-called Dark Period in Austria's history, when Austria was annexed and came under Nazi rule, 1938-45. Austrians acknowledge that they should offered some resistance, but in fact welcomed in their neighbours. Around 200,000 Austrian Jews were deported to the camps and around 65,000 were killed. Very few returned to Austria. The memorial reflects many of these themes and is intended as a reminder to Austrians of the consequences of acquiescence.