Memorial
At the suggestion of the work group ethics, the hospital cemetery has been given a new layout since 2004. By order of the management, the Klingenmünster engineering office "Stadt und Natur" ("City and Nature") has taken part in this reorganization.
In 2007 and 2008, the "Pfalzklinikum" received subsidies from the state. However, the "Pfalzklinikum" also saves costs by personal contributions in the form of labour, especially by grounds keeping which is done, amongst other things, within therapy. At the beginning of 2008, the central area of the memorial was finished. In the centre of attention is a sculpture.
In the next step, steles with information data as well as other design elements shall be integrated into the green spaces. Questions of content and design shall be discussed with interested persons who are cordially invited to assist.
It is planned to perspectively expand the memorial by the installation of an information and documentation area. There, the development of psychiatry and neurology shall be represented in a way everyone can understand.
The focus shall be on the people who were deprived of their rights, persecuted, tortured and murdered by the psychiatry of the "Third Reich".
To give them back a part of their dignity is an important wish of the employees of the "Pfalzklinikum" who do a lot for the memorial.
In addition, the memorial shall become a place where we question our contemporary handling of mental diseases and mentally ill people. The remembrance of the past shall, thus, keep in touch with the present.
Our work shall have a lasting effect and, therefore, we want to address especially young people so that never again mentally ill and disabled people will be labelled as "inferior" and "unworthy to live".
The president of the "Bezirkstag" (the regional parliament of the Palatinate), Theo Wieder, also president of the administrative board of the "Pfalzklinikum", said on the occasion of the commemoration ceremony in Klingenmünster on January 28, 2008: "Of course, there is no collective guild. Without doubt, however, we bear responsibility towards history. And we must admit this responsibility, each generation anew."
"Flyer memorial" for download as PDF-file in German
Thoughts of the artist Volker Krebs about his sculpture “Between the blades”
"A figure larger than life made of Palatine sandstone is standing between two 5-metre high steel moulds. Like a pair of scissors, the metal wedges in the figure. This opposes the movement by carrying a beam-like form springing from its shoulder area, between the blades. Thus, the menace is stopped and the body remains unharmed. At the first glance, one could be reminded of a crucifix. This is, however, only one deduction of the content-related interpretation. I am consciously using a known element in order to lead my message beyond it. What concerns me primarily is not that I allegorize the suffering and oppressed human being but that I point out ways how to oppose hardship and overcome it. In our concrete case, I do not understand my artistry as representation of the misery and outrages of Nazi dictatorship. The observer should take along other aspects and associations, therefore the figure’s "unafflicted" countenance."
Promoted by the "Kulturstiftung Rheinland-Pfalz" (the cultural council of Rhineland-Palatinate)