The artist originally created the sculpture as part of a competition for the Auschwitz concentration camp memorial. It shows five inmates with bound hands.
After 1990, three commemorative signs were added to the square. Two stone slabs are respectively dedicated to Jewish victims and Sinti and Roma victims of the concentration camp. Another stone slab lists all the nations of origin of the inmates of Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp and is dedicated to all the victims.