EL-DE Haus, now officially the Centro of Documentation NS of the City of Cologne, is the former headquarters of the Gestapo and today a museum that documents the Third Reich. The construction was initially intended for the commercial premises of the jeweler Leopold Dahmen. In 1934 the Nazis rented the building and turned it into the headquarters of the secret police, the Gestapo.
It is intriguing to think that the building remained standing after the war, while most of the other buildings around it had been destroyed. Cologne was one of the most bombed cities in during World War II, there are records that 35.268 tons of bombs were used in the region.
After the bombings, the cellars of the building, which were used as prison cells and torture rooms for forced laborers and political enemies, ended up becoming archive storage.
In the immediate aftermath of the war, a light-hearted approach to the house and its past was adopted. It was only in the early 1980s that the House EL-DE became a historically protected monument.
In 1985, a group of citizens took the initiative to found an NS documentation center and organized demonstrations in relation to this place. It was not until September 19, 1988 that the EL-DE House team moved into the premises (offices on the ground floor, a small library and a room for group work on the first floor).
Even so, it was only after 9 years – June 1997 – that the new permanent exhibition opened.
In other words, it is a new memorial that took years to develop in the way we know it today. It carries the story not only of what was done there, but of the people who fought to show it to the world.
How does the visit work?
It is not necessary to book the ticket in advance, you can purchase it on the day of the visit. The price for each adult is €4,5.
It is also possible for individual visitors to tour the exhibition with audio guides (2€ each), which are available in six languages (English, French, Spanish, Polish, Russian and German).
I recommend you buy an audio guide because all explanations of the memorial are in German. Too bad there is no audio in Portuguese, so you can choose in English or Spanish.
How was discovering this place?
I already had in mind that going to this place would not be something simple on an emotional level, but I considered my visit mandatory. As for travel issues, it is possible to get there on foot if you are in the very central part of Cologne. Nothing a Google can't fix. I also found the price of the ticket super affordable.
Upon entering the building, you can already see that the place carries an oppressive atmosphere. Even though the attendant was extremely kind to us, we soon lost our comfort.
On the first floor of the building, it is possible to check the entire chronological line of how National Socialism was installed in Cologne. The campaigns employed, the mental game and the way in which hatred grew in people.
You can then go down to the basement, the same way the prisoners went. The bars, locks and cell doors at the bottom are original.
It is still possible to see the records that the prisoners left around the cells. The place is all tight, gloomy and puts you in a reflective mode about history, the world, the ability of human beings to reach their incredible and abominable poles in a short period of time.
Going down a little more you arrive at the bunker that was used to torture the prisoners who ed there. This was the worst place I've been in my life. At first I couldn't get in, I paralyzed. I confess that I needed to get some air outside to be able to resume the visit. The place is cold and if materialized death has any smell, it is the smell that we smell after ing through this door.
In all, we spent about 2 and a half hours there. The memorial collection is really rich. You find a lot of information outside what we usually already know and that's precisely why it's worth the visit. It's not easy to go through rooms where the walls talk, but I think this is the least we can do: learn.
Several parts of the memorial are even designated for school visits. Children who go there to find out what happened in this world and not repeat history.
Anyway, keep moving forward.
