At the centre of this sheet is a woman who evokes the image of the Virgin of Mercy. A child peeps out from under the mantle which is only hinted at and holds its hands in front of his face in a protective gesture. Behind the figure of the woman, the distorted faces of desperate people emerge from the dark as they huddle up to her. They are the war victims who survived, albeit with emotional and physical wounds.
In her diary, Käthe Kollwitz wrote of her almost finished »War« series:
But my work has gone well this year and I am grateful for that. The war cycle is as good as finished. Insufficient and inadequate it may be, yet if you consider the work’s great task, it has come to a conclusion and completion.«
