Berlin cultural venues are setting up rainbow benches

Dieter Ripberger (left), Executive Director of the Berliner Ensemble; Berndt Schmidt (back center), Artistic Director of the Friedrichstadtpalast; Daniel Krauss (back right), Komödie am Kurfürstendamm; Iris Laufenberg (center), artistic director of the Deutsches Theater Berlin; and Torben Schumacher (right), executive director of the Maxim Gorki Theater, carry a rainbow bench.

A bench painted in rainbow colors in Berlin's Tiergarten has been vandalized several times - now, as a sign of solidarity with the queer community, a bench with the same design has been installed at the Berliner Ensemble.

In the coming weeks, colorful benches are set to be installed at additional cultural institutions. "Berlin’s cultural institutions stand for a diverse and vibrant urban society and are places of peaceful coexistence and exchange," said Oliver Reese, artistic director of the Berliner Ensemble, according to a press release. "We condemn these attacks on peaceful civil society and want to take a stand against the repeated destruction of this memorial site and anti-queer sentiment."

Numerous Berlin cultural institutions are participating

According to the announcement, participants in the campaign include the Deutsches Theater, the Friedrichstadt-Palast, the HAU Hebbel am Ufer, the Komödie am Kurfürstendamm, the Maxim Gorki Theater, the Staatsoper Unter den Linden and the Sophiensäle. In the coming days, these venues plan to set up rainbow benches on their premises or paint existing benches in rainbow colors. In addition, Reese said, other institutions, companies, and private individuals are being called upon to "use their resources to set up rainbow benches on their premises throughout Berlin."

Bank honors victims of the CSD attack

The rainbow-colored bench in Tiergarten commemorates the victims of the Islamist terrorist attack that took place on the sidelines of Christopher Street Day (CSD) in July. It was installed on August 6 near the site of the attack and has been vandalized repeatedly since then. During the attack on July 25, a 21-year-old assailant drove a car into a crowd of people. He then attacked more people with a machete and fled. One woman was killed, and 31 people were injured, some seriously. A day later, police shot and killed the attacker.