Public Art: Was Hier War [What Was Here] (2020 - Present)

Context

Given the Karl Marx Allee neighborhood’s fame as a model Soviet housing development, histories prior to the Cold War have typically gone overlooked. The highly publicized re-use of the Haus Der Statistik as a creative and residential development has ensured the preservation of the Soviet architecture and narrative of the building, while Was Hier War will unearth and voice the history concealed beneath it.

The Gerlachstraße Jüdisches Altenheim, located at Gerlachstraße 18-21, was a Jewish home for the elderly. During WWII, the home was seized and used as a Nazi collection point for elderly Jews being transported to concentration camps. In the late 1960s, structures on the site that were not destroyed by Allied bombing were razed to make way for the DDR's Haus der Statistik. The Altenheim had been requested to be listed under historic preservation years before the demolition. Though some efforts have been made to memorialize Berlin’s Nazi deportation sites, The Mitte Museum notes the Gerlachstraße Jüdisches Altenheim remains unrecognized.

In 2015, the massive, vacant Haus Der Statistik complex became the subject of a collaborative, community-oriented redevelopment project. The planned overhaul of the site presents an opportunity to engage the current and future residential community and creative tenants at the Haus der Statistik with the silenced history Soviet urban development has obscured.

Process and Intervention

Phase 0 (2020-2021): In-depth research and event programming contribute the framework for relevant and collaborative dialogue regarding invisible histories, remembrance, and urban development.

First and second-degree historical sources provide the background and context for open houses offering a public space for research and discussion.

Community members are invited to contribute their understanding of the archive directly to the project. Historical documents and registers are compiled for public interpretation, while posters include historical context, timelines, maps, and transport lists.

Phase I (funding pending): Contemporary research on neighborhood needs, community engagement, and future plans for site use are paired with historic context to guide continued discourse, rituals, educational installations, and public authorship and interpretation.

Phase II (proposed): Phase 0 and Phase I of this project lay the groundwork for a permanent installation to preserve this site-specific history. The redevelopment of the Haus der Statistik, and the site where the Gerlachstraße Jüdisches Altenheim stood, is slated for 2024.