Dusseldorf Memorial
Recalls City's History

RUTH ROVNER SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

I

t looks at first like a score
sheet. All across the page,
groups of five are counted
off, with four vertical lines,
then a horizontal line to com-
plete each count.
This is, in fact, a score-
keeping sheet — a grim one
indeed. This is the way a Nazi
official in Dusseldorf kept
court of the Jews of that city
who were deported to the
death camps.
This original document is
just one of the exhibits on dis-
play in the Dusseldorf Memo-
rial Center. It's a carefully

exhibit rooms detailing vari-
ous aspects of the Nazi era as
it affected both Jews and non-
Jews in the city.
One of those rooms is de-
voted exclusively to the Jew-
ish experience, and that's
where the Nazi record of de-
portation, with its neatly
noted counts of five, is on dis-
play.
"The Nazi policeman kept
very careful count of who was
deported — by age, by sex, by
profession," said Angela
Genger, director of the cen-
ter. His record sheet was

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A view of modern Dusseldorf.

detailed memorial that fo-
cuses on how the Nazi era af-
fected one particular German
city.
A cosmopolitan city in the
northern Rhine area, Dus-
seldorf is now a lively and
modern center of arts and cul-
ture. But it's also a city which
respects the past and one im-
pressive example of that is
the Dusseldorf Memorial
Center.
Opened in September
1987, the center is not as dra-
matic or extensive as the
more well known Yad
Vashem in Jerusalem or the
U.S. Holocaust Museum in
Washington. But it has its
own distinction: It's a memo-
rial in the very place where
the events occurred, and it
shows the visitor how the
Germans themselves choose
to remember.
Because it was the first
such memorial I visited dur-
ing a recent trip to Germany,
its exhibits had special im-
pact for me.
Located at Muhlenstrasse
29, just at the edge of Dus-
seldorf's colorful old town, the
center has a number of small

found after the war, when
various processing records
used by the Nazis were dis-
covered in the city's Justice
Building.
Those deported are re-
membered in this room not
only as lines counted across
a page. Prominently exhib-
ited in its own display case
near the center of the room is
a black leather bound book,
open to reveal a typical page.
It's a page with a long list
of names. Each one is care-
fully and artistically printed
in ink; with another name, in
smaller print, at the bottom
of the page.
In all, there are a total of
2,213 names inscribed in this
book, the names of the Jews
of Dusseldorf who were de-
ported.
The memorial project was
a mutual effort of Dusseldorf
citizens, including young stu-
dents
First came the research to
find the names of all those
who died in the death camps.
A local historian, Barbara
Haschucy, supervised the re-
search. Then, after the names
were assembled, their