The protests of doctors, preservationists, medical ethicists and the Auschwitz Committee could not prevent the almost complete demolition of the historic sanatorium and nursing home in Erlangen. Now there is almost nothing left.
In the end, all the protests didn’t help. Not the collected signatures, not the requests of “Doctors for Peace and Social Responsibility”, not the demands of historians, preservationists, medical ethicists, not even the request of the Jewish religious community. Even the letters from the Auschwitz Committee came to nothing. They all wanted to preserve at least one wing of the historic “Healing and Nursing Home” (“Hupfla”) in Erlangen. They all failed.
After: The sanatorium and nursing home in Erlangen in mid-May 2023: The second wing of the historic facility, which has been preserved up to now, will also be demolished. Since the wings contained those wings where people were starved to death during the Nazi era, the demolition is controversial.
(Photo: Olaf Przybilla)
The Auschwitz Committee recently argued that as the distance from the Nazi era progresses, the significance of original buildings becomes more and more important. “Visible traces” of these crimes are all the more important. The organization wanted the building to be preserved as a place of sacrifice, after all hundreds of people starved to death exactly in the side wings of the building. The Free State as well as the city and the University of Erlangen argued that a “compromise” had only guaranteed the whereabouts of a part of the building – central projection plus appendix – where Nazi medical crimes are to be documented in the future. As a result, the side wings had to make room for modern research buildings.