Dossin Barracks Memorials opens

Today sees the official opening by Flemish Minister-president Kris Peeters CD&V of the Dossin Barracks Memorial in Mechelen. The Dossin Barracks were used by the German occupiers as a transit base during World War 2. The barracks served as the departure point from where more than 25 000 Jews and gypsies were transported by train to the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, which no more than 5% or 1 240 survived. The small Jewish Museum for Deportation and Resistance which the barracks housed since 1995 will now be replaced by the Memorial. Herman Van Goethem, curator of the Dossin Barracks and professor in contemporary history at the Antwerp University explains the complex function of the Memorial as “a commemorative space for loved ones and a place where visitors can express their sympathy for those who suffered persecution and death under the most horrific circumstances. Most importantly it will serve as a shrine to give a voice and a face to the countless anonymous people who suffered so terribly. In this way the ultimate goal of the  Endlösung the final solution, the total destruction of the individual is taken down. Located on the ground floor and in the cellar of the Dossin Barracks, the Memorial consists of three spaces, with the first hall containing the ‘traces’: a number of authentic ordinary objects like letters, drawings, toys and those last traces of an existence that was so abruptly terminated. Among the objects is a painting by the artist Philip Aguirre u Otegui depicting the first raid on the Jews during the occupation in the ‘Kievit Street, Antwerp on 15 August 1942’. In the second room voices recreate the scene of the prisoners’ departure in Dutch, French and English, calling out the name and age of each and every deported person over 28 loudspeakers. The voices that were used are those of pupils from schools in Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels. In hall three 28 screens display more than 8 000 photos of the deported as well as a visitors’ book at the end of the hall where visitors can write down their impressions of their visit. The Memorial will open its doors to the public on 5 September. On the opposite side of the Barracks, the Holocaust Museum built by the architect Bob Van Reeth will probably open late in November. The white monolith, mausoleum-like building was built in white natural stone. The Flemish government invested 25 million euros in the construction of the museum, the memorial and the documentation centre. The complex must become one of the key Holocaust memorials in Europe.