NS Documentation Centre of the City of Cologne

About

The NS Documentation Centre of the City of Cologne(German: NS-Dokumentationszentrum der Stadt Köln) was founded by a resolution passed by the Cologne city council on December 13, 1979, and has become the largest regional memorial site in all of Germany for the victims of the Nazis. Since 1988, it has been housed in "EL-DE Haus," the EL-DE building, named for the initials of its owner, Catholic businessman Leopold Dahmen. This building was the headquarters of the Cologne Gestapo (secret police) between December 1935 and March 1945. In the final months of the war, several hundred people, most of them foreign forced laborers, were murdered in the courtyard of the building. In a bit of historical irony, the EL-DE building remained largely untouched by the ravages of the war. The NS Documentation Centre (NS-DOC) is dedicated to memorializing the victims of the Nazi regime, as well as research and teaching about Cologne's history during the Nazi era. The former Gestapo prison was inaugurated as a memorial site on December 4, 1981. Some 1,800 inscriptions and drawings done by prisoners have survived on the walls of the ten cells. The Gestapo prison memorial site is one of the best preserved...

The NS Documentation Center of the City of Cologne has been awarded several times:

- European Museum of the Year Award 2000 (special appreciation)

- Cologne architecture prize ( German : Kölner Architekturpreis ) 2001

- Architecture prize North Rhine-Westphalia ( German : NRW-Architekturpreis ) 2001

- Invitation to the Congress in Dubrovnik: "The Best in Heritage. An Annual Presentation of the Best Museum and Heritage Projects" 2002

- History Award 2006 of History Channel for the research project: Navajos and Edelweiss Pirates - Non-conformist Youth behavior in Cologne 1933 to 1945 ( German : Von Navajos und Edelweißpiraten – Unangepasstes Jugendverhalten in Köln 1933–1945 )

- Prize for innovation in adult education ( German : Preis für Innovation in der Erwachsenenbildung ) 2007 of the German Institute for Adult Education

- Freya Stephan Kühn Prize 2008 of the association of history teachers in North Rhine-Westphalia ( German : Landesverband nordrhein-westfälischer Geschichtslehrer ) In 2004 Elzbieta Adamski, Employee of the NS Documentation Center of the City of Cologne, received by the hands of the president of Poland, Aleksander Kwaśniewski, "for her extraordinary merits in the field of the development of German Polish relations" the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland, one of the most valuable awards of the Polish state. For more than ten years now Elzbieta Adamski is in charge of the visit program for former forced labourers.

- November 1988 to January 1989: Fate of the Jews in Cologne, 1918–1945

- November 2002 to February 2003: Special Feature: Negroe. Black people in NS state

- Mai 2003 to November 2003: Pictures of a Foreign Town. Forced Labour in Cologne, 1929–1945

- November 2003 to January 2004: Hans Calmeyer and saving Jews in the Netherlands

- August to September 2004: Oneg Schabbat. The Untergrund archive of the Warsaw Ghetto - Ringelblum archives. In cooperation with the Cologne branch of the Confederation of German Trade Unions, the Synagogue community and the Cologne branch of the Society for German Jewish collaboration

- September to November 2004: The Memory of Places. A Picture Project by Sabine Würich

- Mai to November 2005: Between the Frontlines. Cologne War Experiences, 1939–1945

- Mai to September 2006: The " Lischka -Trial". Three NS Perpetrators on Trial in Cologne

- Januar to August 2008: "Willkommen, Bienvenue, Welcome...". Political Revue - Cabaret - Varieté in Cologne, 1928–1938

- November 2008 to January 2009: Life of the Jews in Cologne, 1918–1945

- November 2009 to January 2010: Holy Night as if. Christmas in Political Propaganda. In collaboration with "Collection Christmas - Rita Breuer".