This memorial in stained-glass is a tribute to the late Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld (1905 – 1961), and the 15 UN staff members and UN peacekeepers who died with him. Their plane crashed while flying to a peace negotiation for the Congo Crisis in Northern Rhodesia. A UN Staff committee was formed to ask world-renowned Russian-born French Jewish artist Marc Chagall (1887 – 1985), whose work Hammarskjöld had greatly admired, to create the memorial. 

Chagall designed the memorial with a unique collaboration with master glass makers Brigitte Simon and Charles Marq which resulted in this iconic artwork. In this biblically referenced artwork, the tree of paradise divides the panel with the left-side showing humans and animals blissfully floating and on the right side are humans gathered to a cross. The bottom has slithering snakes and the top has tablets of law. 

The artwork was unveiled at a ceremony with the artist, the Secretary-General  U Thant, and United Nations staff all in attendance. At the ceremony the artist said, “With all my soul I wanted to convey that extent of my inspiration and the inspiration of Dag Hammarskjold and all those who died for peace, for that was the very purpose for which the UN was founded.” 

At the unveiling ceremony, Secretary-General U Thant said, “In shapes and colours, in symbolic forms and designs, Chagall has sought to express the simplicity and the beauty of the ideals of peace and brotherhood which we all endeavour to serve.”