Gregor-Torsten Kozik & Frank Maibier: Gedenken

On the grounds of the Rehabilitation Centre for the Blind and Visually Impaired in Chemnitz, a tall rectangular tunnel made of Corten steel rises from a grass-covered earth wall. It leads past a pedestal bearing a quote from the Chinese philosopher Confucius to a stage-like centre. This is created by a circular depression reminiscent of an amphitheatre. Like unoccupied rows of seats, steps made of brick surround the space, which slopes down by 15 percent. An uneven, heavy-looking sphere with a cracked surface lies slightly offset from the centre of the space like an erratic boulder, creating an image as if a comet had struck the ground. Viewers involuntarily become actors in a scene of pure sensation that has fallen silent after the impact.

The two artists Gregor Torsten Kozik, born in Hildburghausen in 1948, and Frank Maibier, born in Werneuchen in 1959, have created a place of remembrance with their artwork on the site of the progressive and humanistic ‘Royal Saxon State Educational Institution for the Blind and Mentally Handicapped’, founded in 1905 and later renamed ‘Chemnitz-Altendorf State Institution’ by the Nazis. As part of Action T4, a programme to murder people with mental and physical disabilities, the Chemnitz State Educational Institution also became part of the murderous euthanasia programme.

From May 1940 onwards, almost 400 people were taken from here via the intermediate institutions in Arnsdorf, Großschweidnitz, Hubertusburg, Waldheim and Zschadraß to the killing centres in Brandenburg, Grafeneck, Hartheim and Pirna-Sonnenstein, where at least 232 of them were murdered. In total, more than 70,000 people fell victim to the ‘racial hygiene’ crimes of the T4 campaign. Their fates occupy the empty rows of seats in the memorial and silently and absentmindedly contradict oblivion.

(Text: Alexander Ochs / Ulrike Pennewitz)