in detail
In 1893, the Jewish banker Moritz Simon founded the “Jewish Educational Institution at Ahlem near Hanover” (Israelitische Erziehungsanstalt zu Ahlem bei Hannover), later known as the Jewish Gardening School Ahlem (Israelitische Gartenbauschule Ahlem). At that time, Jews had already attained equal legal status in Germany, but century-long limitations regarding their choice of professions meant that Jews still were strongly underrepresented in the crafts and in agriculture. This was the departure point of Moritz Simon’s reform idea. Within four decades the school had achieved a well-earned international reputation, with hundreds of graduates working as gardeners, garden architects, landscape planners, craftsmen or housekeepers both in and outside Germany. The school was moderately religious but not Zionist.
After transfer of power to the Nazis in 1933, Ahlem offered Jews courses preparing them for emigration. This secured the school’s existence and gave pupils and apprentices a temporary safe haven from the hardships of the Nazi regime. The school was closed on 30 June 1942. Since December 1941, the Gestapo had been using the school premises as an assembly centre for the Jewish population prior to deportation to the ghettos and extermination camps of Eastern Europe.
After their headquarters in Hanover had been bombed out, the Hanover Gestapo confiscated the principal’s building and established a prison in the old central building next to it. In March 1945, the Gestapo murdered a large number of prisoners on the premises.
Following their liberation, Holocaust survivors founded an agricultural kibbutz on the grounds of what had been the Gardening School. Its last members emigrated to the future State of Israel in early 1948.
In 1987, the authorities of the District of Hanover established the Ahlem memorial in the basement of what had been the gardening school principal’s building. In 2007, the legal successor of the District of Hanover, the Region of Hanover, decided to expand the memorial on the basis of a new concept. Since its inauguration in July 2014, the memorial comprises the entire principal’s building and a new reception building. An axial pathway connects the memorial to the “Wall of Names”, with the names of those sent to their death from here or whose death can be traced back to decisions taken by the Gestapo at Ahlem.
The second floor of the former principal’s building houses the new permanent exhibition illustrating the history of the Jewish Gardening School until its closure in June 1942 and the establishment of the kibbutz “To Liberation” in 1946. On the first floor the emphasis of the exhibition lies on the Gestapo regime at Ahlem.
1893
Opening of the Jewish Gardening School at Ahlem, initially with a primary school and a section for apprentices
1903
Jewish girls accepted to the primary school and in housekeeping courses
1933
The school changes its curriculum to better foster emigration from Germany.
1941-44
The school premises serve as an assembly centre for seven transports of Jews from the districts of Hanover and Hildesheim to the ghettos and extermination camps of Eastern Europe
1942
Forced closure of the school
1943-1945
Seat of two Gestapo departments for the surveillance of forced labourers; from mid-1944 also a Gestapo prison
1945
At least 59 prisoners murdered on the premises
1946-1948
Jewish Holocaust survivors work and study on the kibbutz “To Liberation” established on the premises of the former gardening school
1952-1955
Grounds and buildings returned to the Jewish Trust Corporation and later acquired by the Hanover Chamber of Agriculture
1987
The District of Hanover opens the Ahlem memorial in the basement of the former principal’s building
2007
The parliament of the Region of Hanover unanimously decides to expand the memorial
2008
Interdisciplinary commission of experts appointed to make recommendations for the new concept of the Ahlem memorial
July 2014
Inauguration of the new Ahlem memorial
