Research projects

Since its foundation, the NS Documentation Centre has carried out numerous research projects many of which concluded with major publications or exhibitions. The main and longterm task is the research into Jewish history; this is a permanent task rather than a project. Comprehensive collections are produced on this topic (see above); requests of survivors or their families and of researchers are received from all over the world. The production of a memorial book on the Jewish victims of National Socialism in Cologne started in the mid-1980s. The memorial book was published in 1995 and a corresponding database was launched on the Internet; the research work, however, still continues. A project that aims at uncovering the persecution of some 2,000 Jews who were deported to the Litzmannstadt Ghetto from Cologne in the autumn of 1941 started in 2006. Another project ‘Transportzug DA 219’ (Transport train DA 219) deals with the fate of 1,163 men, women and children, who were deported to Minsk from the Deutz-Tief train station on 20 July 1942. The video project ‘Lebensgeschichten von jüdischen Emigranten aus der ehemaligen Sowjetunion in Nordrhein-Westfalen’ (Life stories of Jewish emigrants from the former Soviet Union in North Rhine-Westphalia), with videos in German and Russian, started in 2009.

Right from an early stage – the mid-1980s – the collection of witness reports and interviews has played an important role: initially as memories on the occasion of the 40 anniversary of the end of the war, then in the form of many interviews, which were recorded on audiotapes mainly for documentary reasons (but also for financial reasons and because technology was not much advanced at the time), nowadays in the form of the technologically advanced video project ‘Erlebte Geschichte’ (living history). More than 120 interviews, some lasting for several hours, have been recorded within the scope of this project since 2002; these interviews are presented on the Internet and some in parts at the media stations of the permanent exhibition.

Forced labour has been an important issue since 1987, which received decisive impetus through the visitors programmes for former forced labourers. The project ‘Kölner Polizei im Nationalsozialismus’ (the Cologne police during National Socialism) was carried out from 1996 to 2000 in cooperation with the Cologne police and was the first project of that kind in Germany. Youth was a highly relevant issue in many projects: ‘Kinderlandverschickung’ (Sending children to rural areas), ‘Jugend 1945’ (youths in 1945), ‘Von Navajos und Edelweißpiraten’ (Of Navajos and Edelweiss Pirates), “Rheinisch-Bergisches Forschungs- und Präsentationsprojekt ‘Unangepasste Jugendliche im Nationalsozialismus’’’ (Research and presentation project in Rheinisch-Bergisch Land area on non-conforming youths during National Socia lism). The project ‘Stolpersteine’ (Stumbling blocks) by the Cologne artist Gunter Demnig, which is now regarded as one of the greatest and most-widely known activities of the German and European culture of commemoration, was supported and promoted by the NS Documentation Centre right from the start, e.g. through the bi-national project ‘Stolpersteine in Ungarn’ (Stumbling blocks in Hungary). In addition, smaller projects on the press, associations, the economy in Cologne and the artistic discussion of National Socialism and the World War II and on different groups of victims, such as the Sinti and Roma, the victims of ‘euthanasia’ or the victims of the NS military justice system were carried out. The largest current research projects include ‘Opposition und Widerstand in Köln 1933– 1945’ (Opposition and resistance in Cologne 1933– 1945) and work on the history of the Cologne Gestapo and the NSDAP district administration as well as the Cologne health policies during the NS era.