To around ten historically significant sites in the center of Cologne, the bilingual app offers background information. This includes documents, photographs, multimedia content, and statements from contemporary witnesses. The fate of Cologne's Jews before and during the Nazi era is just as much in focus on the historical tour as the handling of the Holocaust after 1945.
Since 1988, the NS-DOK has been located in the so-called EL-DE-Haus at Appellhofplatz. As the headquarters of the Cologne Gestapo, the building – part of the "Between the Houses" tour – became a symbol of Nazi terror. Today, it houses, among other things, a memorial and a permanent exhibition on the topic "Cologne during National Socialism.” Right around the corner, you can find Elisenstraße. In the early 20th century, many Jewish families of doctors and lawyers settled here. One of them, the Moses family, who lived in houses 3 and 9 until 1936, is dedicated a section in the new app.
Remarkable as well is the Disch House on Brückenstraße: Until 1933, an office and commercial building, which several companies of Jewish entrepreneurs had rented, it served as the seat of the Jewish Cultural Association Rhine-Ruhr from 1933 to 1938. The buildings at the corner of Marsplatz and Steinweg had been owned by the Jewish Marx family since the 1870s. A lavish new building was constructed here in 1886/87. In 1941, the National Socialists turned it into a "ghetto house" where Jewish residents were crammed together.
The MiQua itself is also part of the app developed by Samantha Bornheim, Birte Klarzyk, and Charlotte Pinon. The new building of the museum, which will be completed by 2025 above and below the Cologne City Hall, allows for a comprehensive historical investigation; it extends across the archaeological evidence of the Roman colony, the medieval Jewish quarter, and the Christian goldsmiths' district.
More information about the app can be found here.
