Historical Information (Source: Wikipedia)

Holocaust Monument "Die Rampe"

In the artwork “The Ramp”, E. R. Nele processed traumatic childhood experiences. During the Second World War, the daughter of documenta founder Arnold Bode was able to observe the transport of forced laborers every day from her grandparents’ apartment on Fiedlerstrasse in Kassel. The people were crammed into cattle wagons and transported to the site of the former Henschel works in Kassel.

The memorial was created for the exhibition “Stoffwechsel K18”, which took place in 1982 as a critical addition to the documenta 7 on the Henschel site. On the initiative of some members of the Kassel University, the work of art was purchased and inaugurated on May 8, 1985, the 40th anniversary of the end of the war, on the campus of the University of Kassel.

Just a few days after the work of art was installed, the “ramp” was destroyed by an arson attack in May 1985. A fundraising campaign made it possible to rebuild it and re-inaugurate it in 1987. Since then, the memorial has stood in various locations at the north end of the Holländischer Platz campus before it was inaugurated at its current – ​​final – location on October 5, 2017.