Monument of the Grey Buses

Horst Hoheisel and Andreas Knitz describe their collaborative “signs of memory in public space” as “negative memorials” or “counter monuments.” These works focus on themes involving the Nazi era and World War II. Monument of the Grey Buses is a two-part memorial with one stationary element and one mobile element.
In 2006, one of the two Grey Buses was permanently installed at the Zentrum für Psychiatrie Weißenau (formerly known as Heilanstalt Weißenau) near Ravensburg as a memorial to the victims of Nazi “Aktion T4″ – the mass murder of disabled citizens. The cast concrete bus is divided into four parts and positioned to block the former gate of the institution. The design and dimensions are based on the original vehicles of the Gemeinnützigen Krankentransport GmbH/”charitable ambulance service.” These buses were used to transport patients deemed “unworthy of life” to the Grafeneck “euthanasia” center, deporting a total of 691 people in 1940 and 1941 from Weißenau alone. “Where are you taking us?” – a question posed by one of the victims – is inscribed in German on the memorial. In 1940, 10,654 men, women, and children from psychiatric hospitals were systematically murdered at the Grafeneck facility. In total, more than 200,000 mentally ill, and mentally and physically disabled people were murdered in Germany as part of the T4 campaign.
In the original plans for the monument, the second Grey Bus was intended to move from place to place along the historic route from Ravensburg to Grafeneck. This bus is also divided into four parts with a narrow gap on the long side and an aisle through the middle of the vehicle. Sites with historical relevance have since been added to the initially planned route, including Berlin, Munich, Stuttgart, and Cologne, among others. From September 1, 2011, the concrete bus was exhibited along the Rhine in Cologne, where it was stationed in front of the main building of the Landschaftsverband Rheinland (the legal successor to the Provinzialverband der Rheinprovinz), an association that provides support to disabled and young persons and is active in the fields of psychiatry and culture. After the bus left Cologne for Zwiefalten on April 18-19 2012, a permanent reproduction of the mobile monument was installed at the same location in front of the LVR building as a sign of the continuing engagement with psychiatric history.

Reference: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denkmal_der_grauen_Busse