Trains to Life - Trains to Death: 1938–1939

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Trains to Life, Trains to Death . In front of the Friedrichstrasse train station, two groups of children are shown: one who escaped with the Kindertransport and one for the children who were deported to concentration camps.
Frank Meisler's Kindertransport - The arrival in front of Liverpool Street station

The Monument Trains in Life - Trains in Death; trains to death - trains to life 1938–1939 is the second of five sculptures to date on the history of the child transport 1938–39, created by Frank Meisler, a native of Gdańsk and contemporary witness . In collaboration with Lisa Sophie Bechner, Kindertransport Organization Deutschland eV , this sculpture was created at the children's authentic departure point, the Berlin Friedrichstrasse train station .

monument

The monument depicts two groups of children in different colors, broken suitcases and a track, which symbolizes the children's descents into life and death. Two of the children's sculptures are not only reminiscent of those children who were able to survive on the Kindertransporte or children's trains, without parents, to Great Britain and fifteen other, mostly European countries, including Palestine and the USA, but also of all the children who escape the Nazi terror in hiding could. The group of five children's sculptures reminds of the 1.5 million Jewish children as well as all other children who died in the Holocaust, such as those of the Sinti and Roma, those of the Communists and Social Democrats, those of the Slavic peoples and the practices of the NS -Euthanasia murders.

On November 21, 1938, the British Parliament decided on the unlimited admission of children from Germany, Austria and later Czechoslovakia and Poland. By the beginning of the Second World War , almost 10,000 child refugees entered Great Britain via the Netherlands, mostly from Hook of Holland. A day later, on November 22nd, 1938, the Belgian parliament decided to save 1,000 children. Only a few of the children saw their families again, who were deported to concentration camps by the National Socialists and murdered there.

The memorial was inaugurated on November 30, 2008, 70 years after the day of the first transport of children, by the Vice President of the German Bundestag, Petra Pau, at Berlin Friedrichstrasse train station . The Berlin police had previously set up the bronze figures. The only Turkish stonemason in Berlin, the Güldas company, took on the cladding of the base. In addition to the sculptor Meisler, who only survived as a child thanks to this rescue operation, over 60 other contemporary witnesses from Germany, Great Britain , Israel , Austria , Switzerland , Belgium and the USA were present at the inauguration .

Corresponding monuments

In addition to Berlin, there are corresponding sculptures by Meisler at other Kindertransport train stations:

Meisler's groups of sculptures, which have since become the European route of the Kindertransporte , show similarities and different design details.

See also

Web links

Commons : Trains to Life, Trains to Death (memorial)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 52 ° 31 '11.4 "  N , 13 ° 23' 15.9"  E