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Affixed to a round, brick gas regulator house on the Tesselseplein, the monument was unveiled by mayor F.M.A. Schokking on 30 August 1952. Relief Victims 40-45' reminds of the horrors of the Second World War, especially the events in Duindorp.
A number of Duindorpers, united in a memorial committee, took the initiative for the memorial. The Hague sculptor Theo van der Nahmer was commissioned and designed three reliefs of chamotte clay.

On the first relief, Van der Nahmer depicted a Scheveningen man walking slowly forward, head bowed. The artist depicted the expulsion of around 10,000 residents from Duindorp in the period 1943-1944. The German occupiers evacuated Duindorp for the construction of the 'Atlantic Wall'. The occupation is depicted on the second relief. A man and a woman symbolise this period. They get through the difficult time together, back to back.

The last relief shows a proud Scheveningen woman. With head held high, bag in hand, she returns to Duindorp with a firm stride. However, this did not happen shortly after the liberation in May 1945, but only in December 1946. Until then, the district had been a prison camp for 5,700 NSB members and other (supposedly) wrong Dutchmen.
Relief of Victims of 40-45' is an early work by Van der Nahmer. It is restrained and less frivolous than many of his later sculptures, such as Eline Vere (1958), which he created in wax. Of course, he allowed the design to reflect the tragedy of war. But the restrained, static treatment of form is certainly also related to the chamotte clay. In the October 1982 issue of Pulchri magazine, the sculptor said about clay, or ceramics, and stone: 'Stone is expensive and vulnerable. Ceramics is also expensive and, moreover, I cannot indulge in it. With this wax method, I could suddenly make anything I wanted'.