Memorial Hailfingen-Tailfingen concentration camp
The Memorial Hailfingen-Tailfingen concentration camp is a joint memorial project of the communities of Hailfingen and Tailfingen in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. At the western end of the former military airfield, sculptor Rudolf Kurz created an uneven triangle standing in front of a long wall of untreated concrete. The names of all 601 concentration camp prisoners, both survivors and those who perished, are engraved on the memorial. In Tailfingen town hall, a multimedia exhibition documents the former airfield and the Hailfingen/Tailfingen concentration camp, and the "Number Book" lists the names of all Jewish prisoners. The memorial also connects to the Tailfingen cemetery, where exhumed bodies from a mass grave were reburied and commemorative plaques were later installed.
June 2010 © Kamahele · Public domain
June 2010 © Kamahele · Public domain
June 2010 © Kamahele · Public domain
June 2010 © Kamahele · Public domain
June 2010 © Kamahele · Public domain
Identification | |
| Title | Memorial Hailfingen-Tailfingen concentration camp |
| Subject | Hailfingen-Tailfingen concentration camp subcamp and its victims |
| Type | Memorial |
Creator | |
| Artist | Rudolf Kurz |
Discovery and provenance | |
| Initiators of the memorial project | Primarily private initiatives and the extensive research of Volker Mall and Harald Roth |
| Commissioned by | The municipality of Hailfingen |
Historical context | |
| Shift in attitude | A change in awareness began in the mid-1990s |
| Exhibition focus | The individual fates of the detainees and testimonies of eyewitnesses from the Gäu region |
| Completion of project | By 2010 all necessary conditions had been met and the memorial could be erected |
| Opposition to memorialization | Residents and local politicians rejected a permanent memorial site for a long time |
| Early memorial attempt | A provisional memorial stone was erected and desecrated in 1985 |
| Public awareness before creation | The local population knew about the camp and what happened there, but for many residents remembrance was taboo, unpleasant, and largely unspoken |
| Context | Created to commemorate the Hailfingen-Tailfingen concentration camp subcamp and the violence committed there during the last years of World War II |
| Purpose | A permanent place of remembrance for the concentration camp and its events |
Location and ownership | |
| Burial site | Tailfingen cemetery |
| Audience | Primarily school classes with students aged 14 and older |
| Associated exhibition space | The ground floor of the Tailfingen town hall contains a multimedia exhibition space documenting the former airfield and the Hailfingen-Tailfingen concentration camp |
| Part of memorial trail | Yes; the memorial trail includes the former quarry near Reusten, where prisoners were forced to work daily and where one of the tip wagons used at the time was installed as a memorial object |
| Associated community | Hailfingen and Tailfingen |
| Location | Western end of the former military airfield in Hailfingen |
Physical characteristics | |
| Dimensions | Triangle: 2.5 m high and 5 m wide at the base; wall: 5 m long and 2 m high |
| Form | An irregular triangle standing in front of a wall |
Materials | |
| Wall material | Untreated fair-faced concrete |
| Wooden cross material | Wood |
| Main material | Puttied aluminum bars |
Appearance | |
| Construction | Built in several parts |
| Arrangement | A concrete wall is placed close beside and slightly offset from the triangle |
| Surface | The triangle has a closed surface formed by tightly jointed aluminum rods |
Iconography and meaning | |
| Inscriptions | The names of all 601 concentration camp prisoners, including survivors and the deceased, are engraved on the wall without alphabetical or country-of-origin order |
| Intended effect | The unordered list forces visitors to decipher the names slowly |
| Wooden cross inscription | "Here rest the 72 unknown concentration camp prisoners" |
| Commemorated people | The Jewish victims and all prisoners of the Hailfingen-Tailfingen concentration camp subcamp, including survivors and the dead |
History and restoration | |
| Inauguration date | 6 June 2010 |
| Installation date | May 2010 |
| Documentary completion | End of 2008 |
| Burial history | The bodies were exhumed from a mass grave in June 1945 and buried in the Tailfingen cemetery |
| Memorial plaque history | A memorial plaque was erected in the 1960s by the sons of Ignac Klein; additional commemorative plaques were installed in 1986 by the local community and the Jewish community of Württemberg; a plaque with the names of the buried victims was added in 2010 |
| Plaques occasion | The 1986 plaques were installed for a memorial service for the victims of the camp subcamp |
Other | |
| Exhibition features | Touch-screen monitors, a room-length timeline more than two meters high, a computer-generated aerial panorama based on aerial photographs from 1944-1945, a number book listing all Jewish prisoners, and a digital document collection for research |
| Documentary film | Das KZ-Außenlager Hailfingen/Tailfingen |
| Documentary director | Bernhard Koch |
| Documentary collaboration | Made in collaboration with Gegen Vergessen – Für Demokratie |
| Future development | The exhibition was planned so it can be expanded in the future |