Image Copyright: Aktives Museum S�dwestfalen e.V.

Exhibition staging 'Night of Broken Glass'
in Siegen, 1992

On the occasion of the hour of remembrance about the 9th of November 1992, a small exhibition was shown in the former air-raid shelter at the Obergraben in Siegen.

In 1940, the shelter was erected on the foundation walls of a synagogue, which was pulled down the year before. The visitors were very impressed by the exhibition, compiled for the hour of remembrance, that they had the idea, to remember the former Jewish community in a bigger frame.

Years went by, in which the owner of the shelter and the district Siegen-Wittgenstein negotiated about the surrender of one part of the building for documentation purposes. On the 10th of November 1996, it finally happened: In the presence of the state rabbi of Westphalia, Dr. h.c. Henry G. Brandt, the little museum, which is also a memorial, learning and documentation place, was opened.

Image Copyright: Aktives Museum S�dwestfalen e.V.

Since that time, the museum is available to the interested public. Most visitors are groups, mainly school classes, which book a museum's guided tour, followed by walks through the town on trails of National Socialism history. An association manages the museum. It is tightly connected to the work of the local Society of Christian-Jewish Cooperation, which organises a series of events at the museum.

Image Copyright: Aktives Museum S�dwestfalen e.V.

A museum extension followed on the 27th of January 2001. It encompasses now the whole first floor of the air-raid shelter (around 200 sqm). Frau Staatsministerin a.D. Ilse Brusis said among others during the ceremonial opening on the day of remembrance for the victims of National Socialism: 'This is probable, what makes the work of the Active Museum South Westphalia so successful: Here, victims have names and faces, even addresses, which means, that they can be assigned to certain places, which the visitors know, to which they have a connection. This creates personal involvement, makes clear, that the crimes of the National Socialists were committed at very normal fellow human beings, the neighbour, the shopkeeper around the corner, the doctor, the teacher, human beings who lived in and for our society... this museum counteracts, what people always fear of these remembrance days like the one today: That our commemoration becomes a ritual, an empty slogan.'

Postal Address
Aktives Museum Südwestfalen e.V.
Häutebachweg 6
57072 Siegen

Telephone: +49(0)271 20100
Telefax: +49(0)271 24454
E-Mail:
cjz.siegen@t-online.de

Opening Times
Tuesday and Sunday 3pm - 6pm
as well as by arrangement

Donations Account
Förderkreis Aktives Museum Südwestfalen
Konto 768 529 201
Volksbank Siegen (BLZ 460 600 40)