When the “Window of remembrance” (in the Hansaplatz underground station on the library side) was opened to the public in January 2014, it was a moving moment for those who initiated and implemented the project. Now, four years later, the moment was no less moving to inaugurate the revised “Window of remembrance”.
This was done by the Bürgerverein Hansaviertel e.V. on July 9, 2018, together with a group of American Jews who were in Berlin as part of the “Germany Close up” exchange program sponsored by the federal government, many citizens of the Hansaviertel, with representatives of the BVG and the Proft company that installed the window. The revision was made possible by financial means granted to the Bürgerverein by the LOTTO Foundation.
Not far from Hansaplatz, in Levetzowstraße, once stood one of Berlin’s largest synagogues. In 1941 the Nazis turned it into a collection camp for Berlin Jews who were to be deported to the extermination camps. It is estimated that there were over 32,000 people. Tatjana Ruge researched 1,030 names of Jewish residents in the Hansaviertel. The inscription board with the names of these inhabitants, which Katja van Dyck-Taras designed, visualizes the tragic procession of the 1,030 Jewish inhabitants of the Hansaviertel.
The “Window of remembrance”, a glass pane on which a foil was stuck in 2014, now consists of two 5 mm thick panes. This is laminated safety glass, in the middle of which the names of the 1,030 Jewish residents were printed.
Sabine Röhm, pastor of the Evangelische Kirchengemeinde Tiergarten, said in her inauguration speech: “If your child asks you tomorrow… then tell him what happened. Give him your values, your faith and your traditions. Give him your story, your memories and those of your people, so that they may live on from generation to generation. Do not conceal anything. Tell also the terrible that has happened. Do not put a page before your mouth” (from the 1st Testament, the 5th book of Moses).
translated with deepl
