ERINNERUNGSORT IHNESTRASSE
Staircase in the building at Ihnestraße 22, 2024
Fritz Brunier Fotografie
The Ihnestraße Memorial (Erinnerungsort Ihnestraße) is a response to decades-old demands for a visible confrontation with the history of the building at Ihnestraße 22.
- In 1986, scientists campaigned for an exhibition and a memorial plaque acknowledging the history of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics.
- In 1987, members of the same group installed an unauthorised memorial plaque at the building’s entrance at Ihnestrasse 22.
- In 1988, the Freie Universität Berlin authorised the installation of today’s memorial plaque at the building’s entrance.
- In 2013, a student seminar group at the Otto Suhr Institute of Political Science organised the exhibition “Manufacturing Race”, which focused on the entanglements of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics with colonial history. A website on the project exists since 2016 [Link zu www.manufacturingrace.org].
- In 2017, the student-run “KWI-A AG”, which emerged from another seminar, was successful in persuading the management of the Freie Universität Berlin to create a postdoctoral position focusing on the history of the site at Ihnestrasse 22.
- From 2019, the resulting project, “History of Ihnestrasse 22”, led to the establishment of Erinnerungsort Ihnestrasse. The project was carried out under consultation with two advisory boards made up of both scholars and representatives of organisations associated with victim groups.
- In 2024, the Erinnerungsort Ihnestrasse opened at the historical location of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics. Besides critically informing on the history of the institute, the exhibition tells the stories of the victims of the Institute‘s research for the first time.