Due to the changeable weather, the opening ceremony was moved at the last minute from the memorial site to the RheinMain University of Applied Sciences campus.

The Wiesbaden satellite camp had been located on what is now the “Unter den Eichen” campus. It was established on March 20, 1944. The SS had requested 57 men from the SS Special Camp/Hinzert Concentration Camp. In a subsequent transport, another 19 men arrived here in September. At the time of its peak occupancy, the Wiesbaden satellite camp held around 100 prisoners, primarily from Luxembourg, but also from France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. They were forced to perform hard labor for the SS, including the construction of a bunker beneath the “Unter den Eichen” riding and tournament grounds. This bunker is the last remaining physical structure commemorating the Wiesbaden satellite camp.

The camp was located in the immediate vicinity of the riding and tournament grounds. The “Unter den Eichen” campus of RheinMain University of Applied Sciences was later built in this area. That is why the university was keen to participate in the reopening, emphasized University Chancellor Dr. Tina Klug. The SS had used the area in early 1944 to relocate its Wiesbaden offices there. They hoped that the outskirts of the city would offer more protection from Allied air raids than the buildings at Uhlandstraße 4 and 5, where the offices of the Higher SS and Police Leader for the Rhine/Westmark region were housed. To construct these temporary facilities, the SS had requisitioned prisoners from the SS Special Camp/Concentration Camp Hinzert in the Hunsrück.

The new permanent exhibition tells the story of the Wiesbaden satellite camp. While the commemoration of the prisoners is central, the exhibition also aims to contextualize the area located above the memorial site. During its intensive conceptual and research work, the City Archives was able to draw on extensive interviews with survivors of the Wiesbaden satellite camp. The insights into camp life and the prisoner community were essential for the development of the exhibition. “When we imagine everyday life in the camp, we must abandon any notion of a normal, self-determined life. Daily life was marked by arbitrariness, violence, and systematic degradation,” said Sylvie Lucas, Ambassador of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, aptly describing the prisoners’ hopeless situation in her address during the memorial service. The ambassador sees a mission in historical sites such as the “Unter den Eichen” memorial. It is not enough simply to preserve them. “We must understand them. We must translate them into our present and pass them on to future generations,” she said. The ambassador sees the core of remembrance work in respect for the victims and in conveying the truth about what happened.

Nicolas Bergeret, Consul General of the French Republic, emphasized in his address that “revisionists manipulate images and texts and exploit memorial sites to spread the poison of division, conflict, and lies.” Commemoration as a sign of responsibility, and historical sites and documents as testimonies to history, could serve as a counterbalance to this. The Consul General highlighted memorial sites and archives as institutions capable of countering revisionists and historical falsifiers. In doing so, they are not turned toward the past, but toward the present. With the reopening of the “Unter den Eichen” memorial, the state capital of Wiesbaden is sending a strong message: “Forgetting is not an option,” Bergeret continued.

The memorial service was concluded by Dr. Hendrik Schmehl, Head of the Cultural Affairs Department. He pointed out the challenges posed by the loss of eyewitnesses and emphasized that “contemporary remembrance requires not only an honorable tribute to the victims, but also the naming of both the crimes committed here on site and the perpetrators.” “Today, however, the focus should be above all on the victims,” the Head of the Cultural Affairs Department continued. Dr. Schmehl thanked everyone who had contributed to the success of the new permanent exhibition and invited those present to accompany him to the memorial for the wreath-laying ceremony.

Members of the board of the “Fédération des Enrôlés de Forces, Victimes du Nazisme,” led by their president Joseph Lorent, also attended the memorial’s reopening. The Fédération is dedicated to commemorating the victims of National Socialism in Luxembourg and maintains, among other things, an online database containing biographies of those affected. It includes various documents that document the persecution. Shortly after the reopening, the City Archives received information from Luxembourg that the Fédération had a photograph of the sixth concentration camp prisoner from Luxembourg who was killed during a bombing raid on the “Unter den Eichen” camp on December 18, 1944. The portraits and short biographies of the victims are a central component of the permanent exhibition. Even during the research for the exhibition’s redesign, there was great hope of finding a photograph of Alphonse Weber. To this end, the City Archives had, among other things, contacted the municipality in Luxembourg where Weber was born. Thanks to the Federation’s efforts, this gap in the permanent exhibition has now been filled. The display panel is currently being designed and will be completed in the coming weeks.

The memorial is open every Saturday from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. Guided tours can be requested from the Wiesbaden City Archives at stadtarchivwiesbadende or by phone at (0611) 314740. Further information is available on the city’s website at www.wiesbaden.de/kultur/stadtgeschichte/gedenkstaette-unter-den-eichen (opens in a new tab).