As an artist who tends to make his mark with temporary and very directly site-specific projects, designing the memorial on the site of the former synagogue was a particular challenge. A memorial is a warning and a reminder, usually set permanently in sculptural form in stone or bronze, so that the eternal validity of the terrible event is not forgotten. Although my tried and tested tools come from sculpture, they perceive space as a lived space and take it seriously by listening to the users of this place in a communicative way and giving them a voice. It was not the aim of the artistic team to fill the gap that was torn during the Reichspo-gromnacht, but to make it visible and allow it to be heard again and again. We were looking for a way to formulate a permanent place of remembrance, which, in constant change, invites renewed communication between urban society and this place every year.

With the historical catastrophe in the background, urban society is starting to talk to each other. And that seems to me to be the most important thing in difficult and divided times: that we get talking and stay talking. Not easy, a lot of work again and again. Just as the annual placement of the boxes requires a constant effort to bring people together again to talk about our coexistence and the fragility of our democratic values on the basis of the terrible events at the beginning of November 1938.

Project page: garten-des-gedenkens.de