Pavilion of the Norbert Wollheim Memorial
A free-standing former caretaker’s lodge on the grounds of the I.G. Farben Building houses the Norbert Wollheim Pavilion. Underlying the concept for this site is our twofold concern with information and commemoration.
The number above the entrance, Norbert Wollheim’s prisoner number in Auschwitz, and the quotation on the wall of the pavilion refer to Norbert Wollheim as a symbolic figure representing all the former prisoners. Both the remembrance of their sufferings and their fight for recognition are issues dealt with in the Pavilion. The typeface and the number are modeled on the lettering above the main entrance of the I.G. Farben Building, which states the university’s name: Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität. This illlustrates the memorial’s close tie to the research and teaching functions of the university.
Two video screens are available inside the Pavilion. One can be used to call up the website www.wollheim-memorial.de, and 24 interviews with survivors of the Buna/Monowitz concentration camp can be viewed on the other. These survivors’ accounts are the gateway to deeper engagement with the topics addressed by the Norbert Wollheim Memorial: the biographies of the survivors of the Buna/Monowitz concentration camp and their battle for compensation on the one hand, and the history of I.G. Farben and the issue of responsibility for the crimes of the era of National Socialism on the other.
(SP; transl. KL)