From May 8th to May 24th, 2010, the memorial installation “Open Memory” was on display in a prominent location in Köln (Cologne, Germany) — in front of the Hohenzollern Bridge, at the left bank of the Rhine river, parallel to the railway tracks of the Cologne Central Station (Köln Hauptbahnhof), with the Cologne Cathedral (Kölner Dom) in the background.

It consisted of 26 large canvases on which portraits of more than 1,500 people were depicted. This open-air exhibition was intended to commemorate three events that occurred during this period: the end of the Second World War in Europe on May 8th and 9th, 1945, the 70th anniversary of the attack by the German Wehrmacht on the Benelux countries and France, and the 70th anniversary of the deportation of the Sinti and Roma from Cologne and the Rhineland (Western Germany).

The Museum La Coupole had created six canvases with photographs or silhouettes of 351 Sinti and Roma from Northern France and Belgium, deported with “Transport Z” in January 1944 from Kazerne Dossin in Mechelen, Belgium to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp.

On 20 other canvases were the portraits of 1,200 Jewish people deported with “Transport XX” in April 1943 from Kazerne Dossin in Mechelen to Auschwitz. This exhibition was created by the Jewish Deportation and Resistance Museum (Kazerne Dossin) in Mechelen. “Transport XX” is the only deportation train in Europe that was stopped by a resistance group.

The exhibition lined the route Roma and Sinti from Köln had to take from May 1940 en route across the Rhine via the Hohenzollern Bridge to the Cologne Fair (Köln Messe) transit camp for deportation to the extermination camps. The route was marked May 6, 1990, by the artist Gunter Demnig (later known for his Stolperstein project) by printing the writing “May 1940 – 1000 Sinti and Roma” on the streets in Cologne, using a wheel for painting with white paint.

The Open Memory installation was presented by : the Jewish Deportation and Resistance Museum (Kazerne Dossin) in Mechelen, Belgium • La Coupole – History Centre in Wizernes, France • NS Documentation Center Cologne • AK Memorial Centers NRW • Yavne Memorial and Educational Center • EL-DE-Haus Cologne.

Film by : Michel van der Burg, thanks to an amateur (2010) slide presentation by A. Lototsky

Citation info : Open Memory | Miracles Docs #3 | Miracles•Media | 20240523 | ISAN 0000-0007-329C-0003-M-0000-0000-8 | TakeNode 4e398109-d461-4a41-84d7-8d74756c82d8