“Tho­se who do not face their own past lack a future.”

In the not too distant future, the­re will be no more eye­wit­nesses who can tell us from per­so­nal memo­ry about the years befo­re 1945—about the Sho­ah, the hor­rors of the Natio­nal Socia­lists. That is why we need places of remembrance—as remin­ders for pre­sent and future gene­ra­ti­ons, as memo­ri­als for the vic­tims of the Tyran­ny. It is a mat­ter of making visi­ble that in Wies­ba­den too—as ever­y­whe­re in Germany—there were incon­ceiva­ble cri­mes against huma­ni­ty, that coll­ec­ti­ve trans­ports to the con­cen­tra­ti­on camps also star­ted from here, that peo­p­le who had lived in our city and who were neigh­bors had to die becau­se of their faith and their origin.

It was the spe­cial con­cern of our late city coun­cil chair­wo­man Ange­li­ka Thiels that with the memo­ri­al at the site of the for­mer syn­ago­gue, which was des­troy­ed by the Natio­nal Socia­lists on Novem­ber 10, 1938, a very per­so­nal and “tan­gi­ble” form of remem­brance should be found. Each of the more than 1,500 names inscri­bed here and the dates asso­cia­ted with them stand for a per­son who was sin­gled out, who was bran­ded, and who fell vic­tim to the incon­ceiva­ble cri­mes of the Nazis.

It was important to Ange­li­ka Thiels to crea­te a space that gives rela­ti­ves the oppor­tu­ni­ty to mourn, that gives the dead a face, that pre­vents the memo­ry from dis­ap­pearing, that enables discussions.

“Human digni­ty is inviolable”. This les­son from the Natio­nal Socia­list cri­mes was enshri­ned by the fathers of the Basic Law in the first artic­le of our con­sti­tu­ti­on. The memo­ri­al in the Coulin­stra­ße is an ever­las­ting and cle­ar­ly visi­ble remin­der not to for­get this mandate.

Dr. Hel­mut Müller
For­mer Lord Mayor