Monument to the Gray Buses
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The memorial of the gray buses is a two-part memorial that was erected in 2006 for the victims of the murders of the National Socialist " Aktion T4 " (so-called "euthanasia") in the Weissenau Psychiatric Center (the former "Weissenau Sanatorium") in Ravensburg . The gray buses were designed by Horst Hoheisel and Andreas Knitz in 2005 during a competition.
background
The memorial is intended “as a means of transport of remembrance” for the euthanasia victims of National Socialism and is intended to reflect both victims and perpetrators and the deed. It consists of two concrete buses. The models are the Mercedes-Benz O 3750 buses that were used by the so-called " Gemeinnützige Krankentransport GmbH " (Gekrat) and with which 691 patients from Weißenau were deported to the Grafeneck extermination facility in 1940 and 1941 alone as " life unworthy of life " .
The memorial is inscribed with the quote “Where are you taking us?” - the traditional question from a man who, like thousands of other patients, was picked up by the Gekrat buses. In 1940, 10,654 men, women and children from psychiatric hospitals were systematically killed in the Grafeneck killing center. In total, more than 70,000 mentally ill and mentally and physically disabled people were murdered in Germany as part of "Aktion T4".
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The memorial of the gray buses aims at intellectual debate that does not draw a line. It is intended to pass on specific questions to the viewer and stimulate public discussion. Some artists have already entered the discourse and processed their impressions. There are accompanying short films, a performance text by Michael Helming and other contributions to social debate. One of the two walk-in concrete buses (each is in its original size, consists of four concrete segments and a reinforced concrete floor slab with a total weight of 70 tons; total dimensions of each bus: 8.70 m length, 2.40 m width, 2.50 m height) has been blocking since then November 6th 2006 permanently the "old gate" of the former sanatorium Ravensburg- Weißenau .
The memorial in motion
A second, identical gray bus changes its location. The transport is to be financed by donations and public funds. The original plan was for the second bus to move along the historic route to Grafeneck over time.
The bus was initially in the Ravensburger Nordstadt from January 27, 2007 (in front of the commercial school).
From January 18, 2008, the mobile memorial of the Gray Buses stood in Tiergartenstrasse in front of the Berlin Philharmonic , as the administration building of the “Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft Heil- und Pflegeenstalten” had been there in 1940/1941. The Topography of Terror Foundation and the Holocaust Memorial Foundation were responsible for erecting the memorial in Berlin .
From January 18, 2009 the memorial could be seen in Brandenburg an der Havel ; one of the first killing centers was built there by the National Socialists .
From October 14, 2009 the bus was parked on the Schloßplatz in Stuttgart .
On May 19, 2010, the memorial was moved to Neuendettelsau next to the St. Laurentius Church .
From June 24th, 2010 the memorial was in the Grohmannstraße in Pirna . The killing center at Schloss Sonnenstein , where 13,720 people were killed, was located there.
From September 1, 2011, the concrete bus was parked in Cologne on the banks of the Rhine in front of the Cologne State House , the main building of the Rhineland Regional Council (as the legal successor to the Provincial Association of the Rhine Province ).
The memorial was erected in Zwiefalten on April 18, 2012 , because the local sanctuary and nursing home had served as an interim storage facility for the Grafeneck Castle killing center . After the bus from Cologne had traveled on to Zwiefalten, a replica of the mobile memorial was permanently placed at the same location in front of the state house of the LVR in Cologne-Deutz, as a sign of the ongoing discussion of his psychiatric history, even after the Nazi era to serve.
After a stopover on July 13, 2013 in Grafeneck at the site of today's memorial, the bus stood in Munich from July 14, 2013 .
From November 19, 2013, the bus was parked on Friedrichsplatz in Kassel .
On September 8, 2014, the memorial continued via Braunschweig to Posen .
From October 14, 2014, the mobile memorial was located in the Reichenau Center for Psychiatry .
On May 21, 2015 it was set up in Braunschweig on the forecourt of the palace .
From September 24, 2015, the memorial stood in front of the medical directorate building in the Schloss Winnental Clinic . Almost 400 patients at the Winnental Sanatorium were victims of Nazi "euthanasia". They were murdered in 1940 in the Grafeneck extermination site near Münsingen on the Swabian Alb and in 1941 in Hadamar near Limburg an der Lahn . How many people fell victim to the forced sterilization of the Winnental sanatorium or were murdered directly in the sanatorium between 1941 and 1945 as part of the decentralized "euthanasia" program has not yet been researched - or can no longer be precisely clarified.
The traveling "Monument of the Gray Buses" reached the city of Frankfurt am Main , where it stood on the Rathenauplatz from August 19, 2017 and until May 2018. More than 1000 Frankfurt residents with mental illnesses or intellectual disabilities were murdered between January and August 1941 in the gas chamber of the Nazi “euthanasia” facility in Hadamar near Limburg. Former post buses painted gray carried the patients who had previously been admitted to sanatoriums and nursing homes to Hadamar , where they were killed with the poison gas carbon monoxide immediately after their arrival. The urns of 315 "euthanasia" victims from Frankfurt and the surrounding area rest in the grave complex for victims of National Socialism in the main cemetery in Frankfurt am Main.
Since May 28, 2018, the memorial has stood in front of the castle in Hadamar .
On January 28, 2019, the memorial was erected in the entrance area of the Center for Psychiatry (ZfP) Emmendingen , where it is to remain until March 2020; between two stops of the city bus line 5, which leads through the psychiatric area.
literature
- Franz Schwarzbauer, Andreas Schmauder, Paul-Otto Schmidt-Michel (eds.): Remembrance and commemoration. The Weißenau memorial and the culture of remembrance in Ravensburg (= Historic City of Ravensburg . Volume 5 ). UVK, Konstanz 2007, ISBN 978-3-89669-625-0 .
- Thomas Müller, Paul-Otto Schmidt-Michel, Franz Schwarzbauer (Eds.): Gone? Searching for traces and memory work - The memorial of the gray buses. Psychiatry and History Publishing House: Zwiefalten 2017 ISBN 978-3-931200-25-1 . (Review)
Web links
- Website with more information
- Newspaper articles
- The “gray buses” - a journey into the unknown
- Grauerbus-braunschweig.de
- Information boards at grauerbus-braunschweig.de as PDF files
- Entry on the memorial of the gray buses at the LVR Landeshaus in Deutz in the database " KuLaDig " of the Rhineland Regional Association
- The Gray Buses Frankfurt , with information about the project, the background and the accompanying program
Individual evidence
- ^ City of Ravensburg (ed.): The monument to the gray buses . Verlag Psychiatrie und Geschichte, Zwiefalten 2012, ISBN 978-3-931200-19-0 , pp. 6, 18 f . ( dasdenkmaldergrauenbusse.de [PDF; accessed on September 8, 2017]).
- ↑ Station Braunschweig in dasdenkmaldergrauenbusse.de , accessed June 21, 2015.
- ↑ [ http://www.fnp.de/lokales/limburg_und_ Umgebung/Bus-aus-grauem-Beton-erinnert-an-die-Vernichtungaktion-der-Nazis;art680,3003154 ]
- ↑ Sigrun Rehm: "I saw the gray buses". Center for Psychiatry commemorates the victims of euthanasia - the memorial stops in Emmendingen , Badische Zeitung, January 27, 2019.
Coordinates: 47 ° 45 ′ 52.7 " N , 9 ° 35 ′ 54.5" E