Germany: Berlin's delayed Humboldt Forum museum opens amid protest

У вашего броузера проблема в совместимости с HTML5

Berlin’s delayed Humboldt Forum museum finally opened to the public on Tuesday, with protesters already rally outside as the first visitors entered the building.

In attendance at the opening ceremony were Berlin’s Mayor Michael Muller and the German government’s Commissioner for Culture and the Media Monika Grutters.

Protesters had already gathered outside on the opposite side of the street by the early afternoon, carrying banners and signs with slogans like ‘Tear it down’ and ‘Defund Humboldt Forum.’

“These stolen and not returned artefacts are memorials and mockery at the same time,” said a protester on stage.

The museum hosts non-European art and as a result has been embroiled in controversy in Germany with critics demanding it return artworks looted during the colonial period. The forum was first intended to open in Autumn 2019 before technical delays and the pandemic pushed back the date.

Before the Humboldt Forum, the ‘Palace of the Republic’ that housed the parliament of the German Democratic Republic stood at the spot before it was torn down by 2008, with the current building being a reconstruction of the Prussian royalty’s Berlin Palace that stood at the site from 1443 to 1950.

SOT, Michael Muller, Berlin Mayor (German): “With the opening of the house will not end and we can hear it from the protest that accompany us today. Rather the important discussion about the Humbolt Forum and the related issues are placed even more in the city centre of our city.”

SOT, Pier Sare, Visitor and forum investor (German): “People are always going to protest. I can understand part of it because millions of euros are flowing to this project. This always brings the question if this is contemporary but it belongs to the history of our culture and as far as we can keep doing it I will support it. This is also private and public capital. Not only capital from the state but a lot from private hands. I have also donated to it because I really support these things and I will keep supporting them.”

SOT, Kareen Mesta, Visitor: “We waited for one year for the opening and two days ago we knew that the time has come. We register on the internet to visit the cellar and at 16:30 we will go inside. We’re visiting only the cellar today because there were no tickets available for the rest of the expo.”

SOT, Protester (German): “These stolen and not returned artefacts are memorials and mockery at the same time. The powerless in this resistance to colonial exploitation that we still feel today palls in comparison to the eschatological despair that our ancestors experienced.”

#Berlin #HumboldtForum #Germany

Video ID: 20210720-061

Video on Demand: https://ruptly.tv/videos/20210720-061
Contact: [email protected]

Twitter: http://twitter.com/Ruptly
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Ruptly