The “Dejudaization Institute” Memorial, Memorial installation in Eisenach, Germany

The memorial is made of weathering steel plates with openings and text in German and English on both sides. The arrangement of the plates creates a visual effect that shows broken or interrupted meaning through the gaps in the material.

On 6 May 1939, eleven Protestant regional churches founded the Institute for the Study and Eradication of Jewish Influence on German Church Life in Eisenach; it was dissolved at the end of July 1945. The memorial, initiated by Jochen Birkenmeier of the Stiftung Lutherhaus Eisenach in March 2018 and backed by Bishop Ilse Junkermann, was unveiled on 6 May 2019, eighty years after the institute's founding, by six church representatives.

The outer face quotes the Darmstadt Statement of 1947: "Wir sind in die Irre gegangen …" (We went astray). The inner panel, drafted by Jochen Birkenmeier with additions by Bishop Ilse Junkermann, explains the site in German and English. The wording was chosen because the memorial stands at a fork in the road.

The memorial sits at the start of Bornstrasse with easier access than the original building, which sits on a steep slope. You can read the inscriptions from both sides and the location offers space for quiet reflection.

The steel plates are made with deliberate gaps that represent how sacred texts were altered and destroyed during that time. This visual choice links the physical material directly to the theme of spiritual destruction.