Saving the Auschwitz Oven Factory

[Kellanved]

For years, the factory which manufactured the Auschwitz ovens has been sinking into disrepair. Now, though, a movement is afoot to save the site. It's a battle against time, vandalism and entropy.

Getting to the factory is the first challenge. Walk out the back of the Erfurt train station, scamper across a busy four-lane road, squeeze past a chain-link fence and then duck through a graffiti-covered steel gate. The view that opens up on the other side is one of decay, ruin, and wreckage -- and an explosion of colorful graffiti.

The factory, just 15 minutes by foot from the city center of Erfurt in former East Germany, used to belong to the company Topf & Söhne. but for almost 10 years now, it has been left to the skaters, to the sprayers, and to the elements. Walls have collapsed, roofs have caved in, intact windows are scarce and snowmelt runs down those walls that have yet to succumb. But a movement is afoot to repair parts of the industrial ruin. The Topf & Söhne factory, after all, is where the ovens of Auschwitz were manufactured along with the ventilation systems for the gas chambers.

For years, officialdom has avoided making a decision on what to do about the industrial and historical scar on the edge of Erfurt. There was little money available and no clear plan on what to do with the site. The excuses were myriad. Many assumed the city simply did not want to draw anymore Holocaust-related attention than the nearby concentration camp memorial at Buchenwald already generates.
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http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,407592,00.html

[Minnesota Libra]

1. These sites should NEVER disappear - lest we forget nt

[barb162]

2. You're right; thank you so much for posting