Cottbus prison memorial

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The Cottbus prison memorial is a former prison in Cottbus .

history

The prison in 2013
The prisoner's choir at the open-air performance of Fidelio on the grounds of the former prison

In 1860, after three years of construction, the Cottbus central prison was opened. For the Nazi era it was considered a juvenile detention and women breed, used. The prison was bombed during the air raids on February 15, 1945. Various repairs and construction work were carried out between 1949 and 1951. On June 17, 1953, there was a prisoner revolt during the popular uprising in the GDR . During the GDR era it was used for the execution of sentences by the Ministry of the Interior . In most cases, political proceedings were previously carried out at the State Security Department behind the Cottbus District Court. It was regarded as the typical political and free sale prison of the GDR. On October 19, 1978, GDR refugee Werner Greifendorf from Riesa burned himself to death while walking in the yard in protest of his detention. As recently as 1983, 446 political and 94 criminal prisoners were held there. Among the 540 prisoners who were monitored by 208 guards and 30 unofficial employees of the Stasi, 340 were those wishing to leave the country. Typical reasons for detention were passport offenses, "subversive agitation", as well as establishing contact with human rights organizations and media such as ARD and ZDF.

The restructuring took place in 1989 after the collapse of the SED regime . The prison system was continued under new conditions. In 2002 the prison was closed and the inmates moved to the newly built JVA Cottbus-Dissenchen . In December 2007 the detention center was auctioned off to a private investor.

Establishment and tasks of the memorial

On February 1, 2008, the city of Cottbus handed over a building as part of a property to the Human Rights Center as part of a usage agreement in order to set up a memorial, educational and meeting place here. The human rights center Cottbus e. V. was able to acquire the 22,000 m² area for 436,000 euros in 2011 with the help of private donors and the state of Brandenburg. On Human Rights Day 2013, the permanent exhibition "Checkered Clouds - Political Imprisonment in Cottbus Prison" was opened in the main building.

Since the beginning of 2019 the Cottbus Human Rights Center has been involved in the interdisciplinary research association "Landscapes of Persecution", which is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research BMBF as one of a total of 14 research associations for GDR research .

Today the memorial is used for educational offers and various events. These include B. the freedom and democracy festival , geocaching and student workshops with contemporary witnesses. The center was also the station for the night of creative minds and the open-air performance location of Fidelio in the summer of 2014. After difficulties with the funding of the memorial, a. 200,000 euros federal funding from the cultural budget approved for several permanent positions. The state of Brandenburg supported the memorial with 183,000 euros, the federal government supported the memorial with 230,000 euros. The city of Cottbus funded with more than 50,000 euros (2015), 25,000 euros (2016) and from the youth support plan. A total of around half a million project funding. The memorial association will raise 280,000 euros for the operating costs in two years. In April 2018, the state of Brandenburg funded 150,000 euros for restructuring measures from the assets that the parties and mass organizations of the GDR had regained. Brandenburg received a total of 31 million euros. In the summer of 2018, another 668,000 euros came for the renovation of the wall and the forced labor hall. The center has to raise 160,000 euros annually for operating costs alone through donations.

In 2016, the memorial had more than 8,000 visitors (2015: 6,500; 2018: 7,700, including 2,090 students). The commitment to refugees and war victims in Kurdish camps as well as a Chaldean church building for 700,000 euros in northern Iraq will be further developed. Together with the International Society for Human Rights (ISHR), around 1000 Christmas packages were distributed in Dohuk in 2015 and medical aid was provided in 2016. At Easter 2017 a peace and reconciliation march for Christians and Yazidis was held in Iraqi Kurdistan in the Christian city of Alqosh . In 2018 the St. Jacob's Church in Telskuf will be rebuilt and the focus was on minorities, Sorbs under pressure under National Socialism and socialism. In the late summer of 2018, a reconstructed 'tiger cage' for those unwilling to reform was presented by three political prisoners. In January 2019, the sponsoring association set up a four-year research center to document the data of political persecution and the number of political prisoners in the region. An exhibition of historical documents and biographies of prisoners from the Karl-Marx-Städter prison took place until March 2018, which also paid tribute to the life of the cyclist Wolfgang Lötzsch . At the end of 2018 a second permanent exhibition "Past, not forgotten - The Cottbus prison in the mirror of the times" was opened with 16 steles and object cubes in the outdoor area. New research projects are planned, such as the prison regime under National Socialism . In 2019 a concert like Pink Floyd's " The Wall " will take place.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Prison in the GDR. In: Federal Foundation Work-up. July 26, 2015, accessed July 26, 2015 .
  2. ^ Stefan Appelius and Michael Sontheimer: Death of a proletarian. In: TAZ. February 7, 2015, accessed November 12, 2016 .
  3. ^ Reasons for detention and releases from the StVE Cottbus
  4. ↑ The Cottbus prison memorial opened . In: Menschenrechte, Volume 2014, Issue 1, p. 13.
  5. ^ Journal of human rights. (PDF) Retrieved November 13, 2016 .
  6. ↑ research projects. Research network "Landscapes of Persecution". Retrieved June 11, 2020 .
  7. ↑ Fidelio. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on May 6, 2014 ; Retrieved November 3, 2014 .
  8. ^ Simone Wendler : Cottbus: Collecting money for Cottbus human rights center :: lr-online. Further financing uncertain. In: Lausitzer Rundschau . Retrieved November 3, 2014 .
  9. ↑ Nicole Nocon: Cottbus: Federal funding for the Human Rights Center :: lr-online. Federal government promotes human rights center. In: Lausitzer Rundschau. Retrieved June 9, 2015 .
  10. ↑ Peggy Kompalla: Human Rights Center receives 25,000 euros. (No longer available online.) In: LR-Online. December 31, 2015, archived from the original on February 1, 2016 ; accessed on June 14, 2020 .
  11. ↑ Cottbus: Work in the Cottbus Human Rights Center financially secured :: lr-online. In: Lausitzer Rundschau. Retrieved August 4, 2015 .
  12. ↑ 150,000 euros for the human rights center. In: LR-Online. April 18, 2018, accessed June 14, 2020 .
  13. ↑ GDR money for wall renovation. The human rights center fights against ailing buildings in the ex-penitentiary. In: LR-Online. August 27, 2018, accessed on June 14, 2020 (Author abbreviation: hil).
  14. ↑ Cottbus: Human Rights Center honored with freedom award :: lr-online. In: Lausitzer Rundschau. Retrieved November 15, 2016 .
  15. ↑ Help and cordiality for refugees, lr-online
  16. ↑ Daniel Steiger: Reconstructed & # 132; Tiger Cage & # 147; presented in prison. In: LR-Online. August 20, 2018, accessed June 14, 2020 .
  17. ↑ Dr. Steffen Alisch. Research network "Landscapes of Persecution", accessed on June 14, 2020 .
  18. ^ Georg Zielonkowski: The lightning-fast public enemy . In: Lausitzer Rundschau , Senftenberg issue, March 15, 2018

Coordinates: 51 ° 44 ′ 50.4 "  N , 14 ° 20 ′ 8.6"  E