At the entry of the Employment Court in Bonn is a commemorative plaque that reminds that the very building was used as an illegal prison by the SS during the time of the Nazi regime. Mainly the basement was used as a prison, while the upper floors were reserved for different purposes. Today, the basement is the archives of the employment court. Only the steely doors remind of the former use.
As in many archives and cellars, the employment court archive is occupied by the well-known “daddy longlegs” or harvestman. Its cobwebs are spread all over the cellar vault and the steel doors. We learned from the secretary that the staff of the employment court is always a bit frightened to go downstairs because of these spiders and cobwebs. Among daily routines and administrative tasks, the ordinary fear of cobwebs seems to replace the remembrance of the horror that happened here.
The cobwebs are a kind of metaphor for everyday routines that wipe out the memory of the past. The magnification is a symbol for the ever-growing arcane administrative systems that organize life on this planet, although no one is able to localize, determine, and master its intrinsic logic.
