In the 1960s and 70s, it was initially only individuals such as Sammy Maedge and Kurt Holl who persistently drew attention to the former Gestapo prison on Appellhofplatz in Cologne. Their aim was to ensure that hundreds of inscriptions in the Gestapo prison cells were preserved. An initiative was launched to set up a memorial in the basement of the EL-DE building and to establish a Nazi documentation centre. With success: in 1979, the Cologne City Council decided in favour of this. The memorial was inaugurated in 1981 and the NS-DOK moved into the former Cologne Gestapo headquarters in 1988.
The EL-DE House Association was founded in January 1988. It has set itself the task of actively supporting the NS-DOK and developing its own projects to come to terms with the Nazi era in Cologne.
The association is non-partisan and sees itself as a crystallisation point and forum for all those who take a critical look at National Socialism and its effects up to the present day. It takes a stand on current problems such as xenophobia, anti-Semitism and right-wing extremism in Cologne. The association's examination of the Nazi past always focuses on the present and the future.
In September 2022, the EL-DE House Association was awarded the Giesberts-Lewin Prize ‘for its outstanding promotion of Christian-Jewish dialogue as well as its decisive advocacy against racist and anti-Semitic tendencies and for tolerance and international understanding in society, politics and culture’.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VereinELDEHaus/
