On the Sternplatz, people passing by hear the names and dates of death of the Jewish citizens who had been part of Bayreuth society and were unable to escape the National Socialist murders.
The passers-by are confronted unprepared with the collective crime that was committed and which continued to be collectively denied after 1945.
The voice is heard at conversational volume in the entrance area of Simon Pfefferkorn's textile department store, which no longer exists. The source of the sound is hidden in the floor of the pedestrian zone.
On the evening of January 30, 1933, immediately after the National Socialists seized power, the Jewish Pfefferkorn family was aggressively threatened by Nazi henchmen. They were forced to sell their residential and commercial building on the "Großer Boulevard", today's Sternplatz, to the "Gauleitung Bayerische Ostmark" for far below its value. Within a few hours, the Pfefferkorn textile shop became the "Brown House", the headquarters of the Bayreuth NSDAP.
The experience was similar for all other members of the Jewish Community in Bayreuth, who were robbed of their livelihoods and their dignity beginning in 1933. Under the eyes of their non-Jewish neighbors they were forced to flee, or were abducted, tortured and murdered in the years that followed.
One month after the end of the war, in May 1945, party headquarters Brown House was set on fire in an effort to distroy evidence of the Gauleitung's criminal activities. The municipal fire brigade only took action when the sparks threatened the opera house.
The building at the Sternplatz was only the first of many Jewish houses in Bayreuth to be confiscated by the Nazis. The descendants of the Pfefferkorn family reclaimed their property in 1948. A lawsuit was initiated to resolve the ownership dispute between the "Ostmark Selbsthilfe GmbH", the City of Bayreuth and the Free State of Bavaria.
Despite the ongoing ownership proceedings, the building ruins were demolished in 1949 and the city acquired the property to expand Sternplatz "in the interests of better traffic management".
The lawsuit was finally settled in 1960.
Remembrance of the Jewish citizens of Bayreuth murdered in the Shoah
Audio Installation at the Sternplatz
Starting on January 27, 2023,
daily from 8:00 to 20:00.
The Spoken Memorial does not offer an artistic identity.
sternplatz@gesprochenes-mahnmal.de
Sponsors include numerous private donors, the Upper Franconia Foundation, the City of Bayreuth, the Rainer Markgraf Foundation and the Sparkasse Bayreuth Foundation.
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