The Documentation Centre at Lohsepark will serve as a learning centre to complete the memorial site denk.mal Hannoverscher Bahnhof at and in Lohsepark in HafenCity. Construction work on the Documentation Centre began with a ground-breaking ceremony on Monday, February 17, 2020.
Documentation Centre © Wandel Lorch Architekten
Since 2017, a memorial site in Lohsepark has commemorated the deportation of over 8,000 Jews, Romnja and Roma as well as Sintezza and Sinti. Between 1940 and 1945, they were deported via the former Hanoverian railway station to ghettos, concentration and extermination camps, where most of them were murdered. In the newly created Documentation Centre, a permanent exhibition will shed light on these crimes and on the deportation of mostly political opponents to the war effort, placing them in the context of National Socialist persecution policies. The Documentation Centre is intended to be a place of learning with innovative formats, especially for young people. It is being built on the ground floor of an office and hotel building being constructed by the Müller-Spreer Group and is scheduled to open in 2023 according to current plans.
Ground-breaking ceremony for the documentation centre denk.mal Hannoverscher Bahnhof
The documentation centre will have a total area of around 800 square meters. The main focus of the new learning center in Hamburg’s HafenCity is to provide information on the racist persecution of more than 8,000 Jews, Sintezza and Sinti, as well as Romnja and Roma, who were deported from Hamburg and northern Germany between 1940 and 1945 in 20 transports to ghettos, concentration camps and extermination camps. Most of them were murdered. Information is also provided on the persecution and deportation of over 1,000 mostly political opponents of the Nazi regime to the Wehrmacht’s “Bewährungsbataillon 999” (999 probation battalion), hundreds of whom died in dangerous war missions. The close cooperation between the police, the Reichsbahn and the Hamburg authorities, the actions of perpetrators at various levels and the behaviour of those who profited or did nothing to prevent the crimes are also presented.
The permanent exhibition is designed by a scientific team of the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial Site.
Numerous civil society actors are involved in the development.
The Documentation Centre will be located on the ground floor of an office and hotel building which the Müller-Spreer Group is constructing according to a design by the Wandel Lorch architectural office. The Müller-Spreer Group will operate the hotel itself in cooperation with the Grill Royal Berlin.
Ground-breaking ceremony for the documentation centre denk.mal Hannoverscher Bahnhof © Behörde für Kultur und Medien
Hannoverscher Bahnhof
Between 1940 and 1945 more than 8,000 Jews, Romnja and Roma as well as Sintezza and Sinti were deported from the Hanover train station to ghettos, concentration and extermination camps. The site of the former railway station is now located in the middle of Lohsepark in HafenCity. The memorial and learning site consists of three elements: From the historic forecourt of the former Hanoverian railway station, Lohseplatz, a so-called joint runs right across the park to historic platform 2, which has been listed as a historical monument, and traces the former course of the tracks. Lohseplatz and Fuge are the first element and were opened in summer 2016 together with the entire Lohsepark. The second element followed in 2017, namely the opening of the central memorial to the historical relics of the edge of platform 2, from which the deportations departed, as well as to the preserved tracks of the former Hanoverian railway station. 20 name plaques here commemorate the more than 8,000 people deported from here. The third element, the Documentation Centre, is a place of learning in visual relation to the historical memorial ensemble.