Memorial "The ramp" inaugurated at the new location

The location and details of the arrangement of the figures were closely coordinated with the renowned artist. In 2011, the "ramp" had been temporarily relocated due to the expansion of the university and the redesign of the campus. Now that the construction work around LEO is largely complete, the memorial was gradually moved to its new, permanent location on Moritzstraße directly in front of LEO in the summer, with final work completed in late summer.

The memorial consists of several faceless bronze figures tumbling out of an original Reichsbahn train car. It commemorates the deportation and subsequent murder of people - Jews and others - from Kassel and the deportation of forced laborers during the Nazi era. The Holländischer Platz campus is largely located on a former factory site of the Henschel company, which used forced laborers on a massive scale during the war years.

"The artwork not only reminds us to remember the crimes that also took place at this site," said University of Kassel President Prof. Dr. Reiner Finkeldey at the dedication. "It also calls on us to remain vigilant in a time of great upheaval and to resist some current developments, some beginnings, in good time. We scientists in particular should be aware of the special responsibility for our actions and consider the consequences of our research for society. It is therefore good and right that the memorial has found such a central place on our campus. The ramp is now part of the history of our university itself."

Kassel's Lord Mayor Christian Geselle added: "Since its inauguration more than 35 years ago, the memorial has lost none of its relevance. The ramp is a strong sign against right-wing radicalism and neo-fascism, against xenophobia, against anti-Semitism and against war and violence. All this has no place in our city." Geselle went on to say that he is glad that social interaction in Kassel functions with mutual respect. "Our university makes an enormous contribution to understanding between different nations and to integration."

In addition to Finkeldey and Geselle, the emeritus educationalist Prof. Dr. Dietfrid Krause-Vilmar, a renowned expert on the National Socialist era in northern Hesse, spoke. He had belonged to that circle of members of the Kassel University of Applied Sciences on whose initiative the work of art had been erected on the campus in 1985. E.R. Nele, a daughter of documenta founder Arnold Bode, had created it for the exhibition "Stoffwechsel K18," which had taken place three years earlier on the Henschel grounds as a critical complement to the then documenta 7.

Only a few days after the artwork was installed in May 1985, the "ramp" was destroyed by an arson attack. A fundraising campaign made it possible to rebuild it and rededicate it in 1987. Since then, the memorial has stood in changing locations at the north end of the Holländischer Platz campus, the largest campus of the University of Kassel.

Image (Photo: University of Kassel): www.uni-kassel.de/uni/fileadmin/datas/uni/presse/anhaenge/2017/Die_Rampe.jpg

Contact:

Sebastian Mense
University of Kassel
Communications, Press and Public Relations
Tel.: +49 561 804-1961
E-mail: presse[at]uni-kassel[dot]de
www.uni-kassel.de