Permanent Exhibition "History – Violence – Conscience"

Room 1 (Entrance Hall): History – Violence – Conscience

An impressive industrialist villa of the Weimar Republic, the Order Police's centre of power in the Nazi period, later on a site of the denazification of perpetrators and for ruling on claims of persecutees: this is the history of the Villa ten Hompel.

History, however, is more than merely past events. Marks have been made, some more visible than others, in which the past lives on in the present.

Violence marked the history of the Villa ten Hompel. Here stood the desks of the Nazi police officers who dispatched policemen into occupied Europe – to take part in the mass murder of Jews, Sinti and Roma. Here stood the desks of the post-war officials who investigated National Socialist acts of violence, and checked compensation claims of persecutees.

Conscience remains the affair of each individual. Those who use violence on behest of a state, have to see themselves in the mirror and answer for their actions in the face of their conscience.

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