THE EL DE

From Monschau, Germany, we boarded two buses and one train to get us to Cologne, Germany. We expected a hussle-bussling city on the move. And it is.

We pre-selected some tourist areas of interest prior to Cologne arrival and The EL DE, was at the top of our list.  

The EL–DE Haus, officially the NS Documentation Center of the City of Cologne, is the former headquarters of the Gestapo and now a museum documenting the Third Reich.

This is a difficult subject to approach and  I do not feel qualified to bring any form to this unimaginable era during Hitler’s reign. It was perhaps a glance of Satan-incarnate.

 I was unaware of the many perks, pensions, the supporting of businesses, granting high-government position offerings, and many other benefits redeemable with membership into the Nazi  party. All of these Nazi-manipulations were against the back-drop of dire,  rampant poverty. The decision to join Hitler’s ranks, in essence, was made for them. Deeply troubling, to say the very least.

The  EL DE HAUS has been preserved in most of its original form-the cells where prisoners were kept, the latrines, interrogation rooms, the Gestapo living areas, and the outdoors courtyard  where prisoners were put before a firing squad or hung.

For some unknown reason, the guards allowed prisoners  to write on the prison walls with a variety of tools that may have been an attempt leave a memory of their existence.

This day will stay with me.