Place de la Constitution and the Gëlle Fra, the golden lady who came back

Almost everyone who visits Luxembourg City takes a photo of the Gëlle Fra, the golden lady gleaming on top of an obelisk at the southern tip of the old town. Few realise that the statue was torn down by the Nazis, vanished for decades and turned up under the stands of a football ground. For me it’s the memorial with the best story in the capital. Here it is.

A bastion turned into a viewpoint

The square stands on the old Beck bastion, from 1644 and 1685 according to the city’s tourist office. That projecting corner of the defences kept watch on the Pétrusse valley, and today it’s the best viewpoint on that side, with the Adolphe Bridge spanning the valley. Below, in the rock, are the galleries of the Pétrusse Casemates, visited with a guide.

A memorial the country paid for

The story begins in December 1918, when a committee formed to build a national memorial to the Luxembourgers who had volunteered with the Allied forces in the First World War. Money was raised across the country, including through two series of charity postage stamps, according to the government’s portal.

In 1920 the Luxembourgish sculptor Claus Cito won the competition, from 18 entries, with his design «À nos braves». He modelled the figures in his Bascharage studio, first in clay and then in plaster, and they were cast in bronze in Brussels. The memorial was unveiled in 1923. A 21 m obelisk on a plinth with two bronzes, a fallen soldier and his comrade, and on top the 3.30 m gilded statue, an angel of peace holding a laurel wreath. Who sat for her remains a mystery.

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The fall of 1940 and the return

On 10 May 1940 Germany invaded Luxembourg. As part of its drive to strip the country of anything French, Gauleiter Gustav Simon ordered the Gëlle Fra taken down. The government’s portal tells how local firms made excuses to avoid the job, claiming they lacked the equipment or that their workers refused, until council labourers did it under threat of dismissal. In October 1940, after several attempts, the statue fell and smashed against the obelisk. The two soldiers and the documents in the foundations were saved.

After liberation the plinth was rebuilt, and in 1950 the soldiers returned. The statue was another matter. Its remains were shown in 1955 and then disappeared, until in 1981 they were found under the stands of the old Josy Barthel stadium. She was rebuilt in December 1984 and went back on the obelisk in May 1985. She isn’t quite the same, though. The feet had to be remade and her head, which in 1923 looked straight ahead, now looks down because of the fall. I find that detail the most eloquent thing about the monument.

Why do people call it the Statue of Liberty?

Because that’s what it became. The city tourist office says it’s now a symbol of the freedom and resistance of the Luxembourg people, and alongside the dead of 1914 to 1918 the memorial now honours those of the Second World War, the Luxembourgers killed in Korea and the volunteers of the Spanish Civil War. For more on that period, see Luxembourg WW2.

Controversy has always followed her. In 1923 the clergy objected to her sensuality and her closeness to the cathedral. In 2001 «Lady Rosa of Luxembourg», a pregnant Gëlle Fra by the artist Sanja Iveković, caused uproar. And in 2010 she travelled to the Shanghai World Expo to stand at the Luxembourg pavilion, with criticism of her removal. On her return she spent six months at ground level in Bascharage, Cito’s home town.

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How to see her

The square is public and free. I’d do two things. Walk up to the plinth to see the bronze soldiers close up, then cross the Adolphe Bridge to look back at the obelisk from across the valley, with the spires of Notre-Dame Cathedral behind. That’s the picture that sums up the old town best. And on an autumn weekend, I’d finish by going down into the Pétrusse Casemates, whose guided tour starts from this very square.

One more reason to linger. The monument’s story is written up in detail on the government’s portal, which marked her 100th anniversary in 2023, and it’s well worth reading on your phone while you stand under the obelisk.

If you would rather have a local show you round, book a guided tour in Place de la Constitution and choose by the reviews.

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