The memorial "The Mother" is located on the federal highway 321 between Raben Steinfeld and Schwerin at the height of the Störkanal. As a reminder for future generations and in reverence for the victims of National Socialism, it was inaugurated in 1975 and still commemorates the death march of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp inmates.
As the Red Army drew ever closer in April 1945 and was finally only a few kilometers away from Sachsenhausen concentration camp, the SS ordered the concentration camp to be evacuated in the morning hours of April 21. 33,000 prisoners were put on the march in the direction of the northwest. They had to walk between 20 and 40 kilometers a day. Many of them were shot on the way, others died of exhaustion in the cold and wet weather. However, some of them reached the area between Schwerin and Parchim by different routes. Near Raben Steinfeld they met units of the Red Army as well as the US Army on May 2, 1945. For the approximately 18,000 prisoners of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp who had survived until then, suffering came to an end at the Störkanal.
A memorial stone erected here in the early 1950s commemorates this. 25 years later, on September 8, 1975, the memorial "The Mother" was inaugurated at this historic site. Sculptor Gerhard Thieme from Berlin created the bronze sculpture, to which four relief panels were later added. "The Mother" has since stood for the nameless suffering of mothers of all nations.
