This memorial site is simultaneously a very personal memorial for Ignatz Bubis, in respect of his incredible achievements for the relations between Jews and non-Jews in Germany.
Even if Ignatz Bubis confessed at the end of his life, his engagment hadn’t achieved anything positive, “A Living Memorial” as a project and initiative against the Forgetting and for Humanity and the lasting sustainable influence on the project development and my whole life tell actually the contrary, even if my person would remain the only one being influenced positively.
For me personally, however, there is much more, because he did not only encourage me to continue working on the realisation of “A Living Memorial ” during 1995-1998,
but he was also one of a few persons, who showed his deep empathy when I informed him in June 1999 about the destruction of our common project a few weeks after I woke up from the coma in May 1999.
Just a few weeks later, he died on 13 August 1999 completely disenchanted about the situation in Germany, and it was a mere irony, he wanted to be buried in Israel in the security of the holy land because he was afraid his grave might be desecrated by Neonazi, but hardly buried his grave was desecrated by an Israeli extremist.
In 2001, I created a memorial page for Ignatz Bubis, and in 2015 I dedicate the documentation and re-construction of “A Living Memorial” to this charismatic and visionary person, to get that central position in ” A Virtual Memorial” as it deserves.
(Wilfried Agricola de Cologne)