Tuesday, January 04, 2022
The jury has already chosen the design
Commissioner supports Odenwaldschule memorial
The discovery of the systematic abuse at the Odenwald School made it a symbol of a boarding school in which children were exposed to sexual violence for years. So far there is no memorial. The abuse commissioner of the federal government would like an “appropriate” one.
The abuse commissioner of the federal government, Johannes-Wilhelm Rörig, supports plans for a memorial for the victims of sexual violence in the former Odenwald school in Heppenheim. “I strongly support the erection of an appropriate memorial against sexual violence against children and young people, which corresponds to the huge dimension of injustice that teachers have done to the Odenwald students there,” he told the “Frankfurter Rundschau”. According to information from the newspaper, considerations for such a memorial are well advanced. One design has already been selected by a jury.
Years of systematic sexual abuse against students came to light more than ten years ago. Studies have shown that more than two dozen teachers and other school staff were involved in the crimes of up to 900 wards. The school became a symbol of a boarding school in which children were victims of sexual violence, emotional exploitation and cover-up and suffered trauma that continues to the present day.
The Odenwald School, where celebrities like the Green politician Daniel Cohn-Bendit or the writer Klaus Mann went to school, is history as an institution after the scandal became known. The boarding school eventually had to file for bankruptcy, and after more than 100 years, the school closed in 2015. The site was taken over by an entrepreneurial family and rebuilt. Apartments there are now rented temporarily or permanently. The owners advertise on the Internet: “Live like a dream – for one night or forever!”