another competition by the Die Weißenau Centre of I haven’t just done artistic work on the German
Psychiatry in Ravensburg a few years earlier (2006) past, but also on the military dictatorships in
for a memorial to the victims of “euthanasia”. Latin America and Cambodia, as well as Franco’s
dictatorship in Spain, where I tried to work more as
A memorial bus permanently blocks the old gates a catalyst to initiate the process of remembrance.
of the former sanatorium Ravensburg-Weißenau, a In Spain, I was also asked for advice on how to deal
departure point for buses to the extermination camp with monuments from Franco’s dictatorship. For the
Grafeneck. A second identical grey memorial bus Monumento a los Caídos in Pamplona, I suggested
changes its location both along the administrative breaking it up architectonically and converting it
channels of the “T4 programme” and the historical into a museum and place of discussion regarding the
routes of the “death buses”. This work isn’t just Civil War. Indeed, there is still no national museum
a memorial to the victims of “euthanasia”, but in Spain about the Civil War. However, it was now
also reflects the act and perpetrators by using the decided to completely demolish it.
grey buses, the tools of the perpetrators, as a mode
of transport of remembrance, to some extent as
a vehicle of history. Transporting the 70-tonne
buses is transporting suppressed history. Moving
the memorial plays an important role here. Similar
to our memory, this symbol of remembrance in
the form of the grey bus comes and goes; just
as in the present, in day-to-day life, issues that
are suppressed and made taboo always suddenly
reemerge and then disappear. Memory is a
process. It creates images, forgets them, changes
constantly and is forever in motion. Memory and
We can tear down
monuments, but history
cannot be torn away; we
must see the past before
our own eyes and within
ourselves, since it is part of
our life.
suppression are also central themes in psychiatry.
The bus follows the administrative channels of
the “euthanasia” killings, marking places of the
deed, of the victims and of the perpetrators, then
leaving again. The second remains at its respective
site for as long as initiatives and municipalities
agree amongst themselves. Transport is financed
by donations and public funding. What’s crucial is
that the memorial remains in motion. It is an open
process, at the end of which the question remains: if
nobody wishes to borrow the memorial and the grey
bus stops where it is, does memory then also stop?
The 75-tonne memorial distributed over three flat-
bed lorries is still moving from place to place. It has
since been at 20 locations and covered almost 8,000
km. One important location was the Philharmonic
in Berlin. The Monument of the Grey Buses stood
there for a year in 2008 and marked the spot where
the memorial for the forgotten first victims of the
Holocaust was finally installed in 2014.
54
Observing Memories
ISSUE 2
The Monument of the Grey Buses stood at the Philarmonic of Berlin (top
picture) for a year in 2008 and marked the spot where the memorial for the
forgotten first victims of the Holocaust was finally installed in 2014.
Bellow: Alte Pforte and Denkmal.| Horst Hoheisel