Places are what people make of them. Imagine a beautiful, richly decorated fairy-tale castle. It can be the home of a princess, just as it can be the home of a despot.
Now imagine a tiny student flat. Shabby furniture, cramped and musty — the home of Sophie Scholl, the meeting place of the White Rose. How much political beauty can emerge in a tiny kitchen, how much political abyss in a golden castle?
When I thought about what this space means for us, who will bring it to life, what it will be for whom, I thought about the people who set out on this journey with us: circus performers, singers, dancers, musicians, carpenters, hospitality professionals and accountants, technicians and people who maintain and clean the space, people who make phone calls, and people who sell tickets.
People from all over the world, people born in Cologne who have never left, people who fled war, people who fled drought, lack of prospects, natural disasters and civil war. Men, women, transgender people, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists and people without religious affiliation, atheists. A Jewish man. Which still says something about the fact that the Holocaust not only destroyed millions of people, but also subsequent generations.
Here, people with white and black skin, heterosexual and homosexual people, very young and very mature people work together.
All of them bring their wishes, hopes, frustration, confusion, humor, energy, joy of life into this house and make this place what we three women stand for: a place of open society. A place in which Article 1 of the Basic Law is lived in every fiber: Human dignity shall be inviolable.
That is not easy. This is not Bullerbü, it is not without conflict and yes, some of the conflicts cannot be resolved. Because only someone who respects Article 1 as much as we three women do can work in this space. But it is what is worth fighting for: an open, democratic society.
Today, on the day of our christening, one week after a party that is securely far-right received almost an absolute majority in an election, I hear the voice of the great Margot Friedländer in my head: Be human, just be human ...
Cologne, this mirror palace is my very personal love letter to the city that gave me, the former refugee child, a home where I was able to raise my daughters in peace and security.
Today, on the day of the christening of our new home, the Urania Spiegelpalast, I want to make you, my beloved Cologne, a promise:
I promise that the Urania will always be a place of open society.