Train of memory
The Train of Remembrance is a "rolling exhibition" in Germany and Poland that commemorates the deportation of several hundred thousand children from Germany and the rest of Europe on the rail network with the Deutsche Reichsbahn from 2007 to 2013 to the National Socialist concentration and extermination camps . By focusing on a group of victims, the young generation should be able to identify more easily with the victims of the Shoah .
After six months across Germany, the train reached Oświęcim in Poland, the location of the Auschwitz concentration camps, on May 8, 2008 . 80 students accompanied the train from the last German train station to Auschwitz. The train had commemorated the deportation of the children in 63 stations and was viewed by over 240,000 people. Due to the strong response, the trip was then continued. A total of 420,000 people visited the exhibition.
history
The non-profit association train of remembrance was founded in June of 2007. On August 20, 2007, he explained the concept of the exhibition in a letter to Federal Transport Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee and announced that it would start in November. In the same letter, the association asked for the costs for the technical provision of the train ( locomotive and several cars ) to be covered.
The train's journey began on November 8, 2007 in Frankfurt am Main . The train, consisting of two exhibition cars and a changing number of accompanying cars, was pulled by a Prussian steam locomotive 58 311 of the Ulm Railway Friends. Locomotive 50 3552 of the Hanau Museum Railway pulled the train from Kassel to Gotha, where it was then taken over by P8 2455 Posen . The Polish part of the route from Görlitz to Oświęcim was operated by the Polish State Railways PKP . The train was almost only cities and railway stations involved in the deportation of Jews from Germany by the Gestapo and the Reichsbahn had played a role.
From Frankfurt the train went to Darmstadt, Mannheim , Karlsruhe, Ettlingen, Vaihingen, Stuttgart, Tübingen, Saarbrücken, Fulda, Göttingen, Hanover, Braunschweig, Gotha, Erfurt, Weimar, Leipzig and Dresden. After the border station in Görlitz (Saxony), the train drove to the Auschwitz Memorial . The memorial was reached on May 8, 2008, the anniversary of the liberation from National Socialism and the victory over the Nazi regime at the end of the Second World War in Europe in Oświęcim (Auschwitz).
The museum train did not follow a single historical route. After a memorial ceremony in Auschwitz and the deposit of documents, photos and letters, the Memory Train returned to Germany. Stops on the way back were Chemnitz (May 14, 2008), Mittweida, Eisenach, Marburg, Gießen and Gütersloh.
The train has been back on the road since March 2009. The stations are Bonn, Koblenz, Mainz, Worms, Ludwigshafen am Rhein, Speyer, Baden-Baden, Offenburg, Freiburg, Konstanz, Biberach an der Riss, Laupheim, Ulm, Augsburg, Markt Kaufering, Munich, Regensburg, Nuremberg, Hersbruck, Fürth , Erlangen, Würzburg, Aschaffenburg, Offenbach am Main and Wiesbaden. In autumn 2009 the train made in Zweibrücken, Pirmasens, Saarbrücken, Delmenhorst, Oldenburg (Oldenburg), Wilhelmshaven, Vechta, Soltau, Walsrode, Schwarmstedt, Hanover, Lehrte, Magdeburg, Blankenburg, Dessau, Wittenberg, Cottbus, Frankfurt (Oder), Guben and Eisenhüttenstadt station.
The exhibition on the train
The Train of Remembrance consists of several passenger cars in which an attempt is made to make the history of the European deportations understandable by researching and presenting individual biographies . The delivery of the deportation notices , the preparation and leaving of the apartments (evacuation), the last way through the middle of the place of residence to the assembly camps and to the waiting trains are also shown in the vehicles . Several perpetrators from different functional levels are presented in a separate exhibition area: people from the Reich Ministry of Transport , logistics planners from the Reichsbahn (for running and billing the special trains), members of the SS.
From the outset, it was also planned that the public would participate in the stopping places, for example through school classes: At the end of the second car there were empty boards for photos and biographies of individual children from the communities, which had to be filled by local research by schools and other organizations and cities along the route. The concept of the initiators seemed to be confirmed by the keen interest of visitors and made it necessary to extend trips several times by several thousand kilometers and many stops.
There is also a research unit on the train : a computer and reference library enable the start of a search for clues. The reference library was supplemented on site. The initiative also provides schoolchildren with the knowledge of how historical project work can succeed. The association asked and asks expressly for assistance in the search for further information about children, whose fate has remained unknown to the public to this day. As a starting point for research, there are lists with names and dates of birth of children and young people per location, which have been compiled from the memorial book “Victims of Persecution” , a database of the Koblenz Federal Archives . The club train of memory has so far 12,089 German children and young people identify (as of November 2007). Germany is thus following the example of the French organizations and researchers, who have succeeded in helping most of the deported children get their name, personal details and, very often, a photo - their own face - back. The multi-volume memorial book , edited by Serge Klarsfeld , is unique in Europe to date.
In 2013 the exhibition was revised and put back on track with several stops in Germany. The uprising in the Sobibór extermination camp and the deportations from the Westerbork transit camp in the Netherlands became the focus of the presentation.
Currently, one focus of the exhibition is on the deportation of Jews from Thessalonica .
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Disputes with Deutsche Bahn
Between the Support Association of the train of memory and the Deutsche Bahn in early 2008 developed a growing dispute over the rolling exhibition.
Track and station prices
The association turned to the Federal Ministry of Transport in October 2007 with a request for exemption or assumption of the train path fees and other charges that Deutsche Bahn would charge. The ministry rejected this due to the economic responsibility of the railway companies and the lack of budgetary authorization and also rejected the use of federal budget funds in principle. However, it made 15,000 euros available for the train's stay in Berlin, this amount being based on calculations by the organizers. The city of Berlin has now also made 8,000 euros available.
Between November 2007 and January 2008, Deutsche Bahn charged train path fees of € 6,549, € 20,818 in station fees and € 507 in ancillary costs for electricity and water. By September 2012, the association said it had paid a total of over 200,000 euros to DB AG.
The organizers criticized Deutsche Bahn's unwillingness to refrain from charging train path and station prices or - if that was not possible - to compensate for this with donations . The company should face up to the historical responsibility of Deutsche Bahn and remember how much profit the railway made from deportations during the Nazi era. According to the sponsoring association, the expected fees for the entire trip totaled more than 150,000 euros. The Deutsche Bahn referred to the current legal situation, which prescribes equal treatment of all railway companies and therefore does not permit the non-charging of train path fees and other charges. In spring 2008 the supervisory board of Deutsche Bahn AG spoke out in favor of donating 100,000 euros to an international Jewish organization.
At the beginning of July 2009, the company donated 175,000 euros to the “Remembrance, Responsibility and Future” foundation .
Expert opinion on the income of the "Deutsche Reichsbahn" from the NS mass deportation transports
In November 2009 the sponsoring association published a report on the income of the Deutsche Reichsbahn from the Nazi mass deportations. Accordingly, the Reichsbahn had the kidnapping paid for with around 445 million euros in today's currency. Including interest, more than 2 billion euros have accumulated since 1945.
The association asked the DB AG to make a large amount available for the survivors of the deportations . The company repeated that it was not the legal successor of the Reichsbahn and therefore refused formal commitments.
In April 2012, several media reported that Deutsche Bahn AG was preparing to take legal action for restitution and was therefore taking legal precautions in the USA . A PR agency was also hired in the USA to fend off lawsuits. Lawsuits in Europe are based on the opinion of the Zug der memorial eV
Stop in Berlin
Fierce criticism of Deutsche Bahn also arose when it refused, with reference to "operational reasons" , to let the train of remembrance stop at Berlin-Grunewald and Berlin Central Station . The Berlin State Secretary for Culture André Schmitz described the behavior of Deutsche Bahn towards the initiative as "absolutely incomprehensible, embarrassing and provincial". In his opinion, the behavior of Deutsche Bahn damaged “not only the company's reputation, but also the efforts of Berlin to face its history as the center of power of the Nazi regime”. Berlin's governing mayor, Klaus Wowereit , emphasized that the Jews of Berlin had been systematically taken to the extermination camps by the Nazis, “by train ”. Therefore, it must be possible for a commemorative memorial project to “receive any form of support”.
As a reaction to the criticism of not letting the train enter the memorial platform 17 at Berlin-Grunewald station, the railway pointed out that the platform could no longer be used after renovations in the station. Alternatively, the train suggested a stay at the Grunewald S-Bahn station. In the opinion of the railway, the initiative derived from "undeniable facts of bad intentions". The company also offered stops in Lichtenberg, Gesundbrunnen, Westhafen, Südkreuz, Charlottenburg and Schöneweide. Today bushes and trees grow in the western half of “Gleis 17”. Access to the track (in the west) is no longer possible after the station has been partially dismantled ( 52 ° 29 ′ 20.2 ″ N , 13 ° 15 ′ 52.2 ″ E ).
On April 10, 2008, the Federal Network Agency confirmed the reasons given by Deutsche Bahn from a railway law perspective. At the same time, the authority's president, Matthias Kurth , appealed to the board of Deutsche Bahn to allow the train to stop at the main station. In a letter to the CEO of Deutsche Bahn, Hartmut Mehdorn , Federal Transport Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee emphasized in mid-April 2008 that the company had "largely isolated" itself with its previous position; the company's reputation is threatened with damage. He called on Mehdorn to revise his position and donate the route prices to the association.
On April 13th the train pulled into the Ostbahnhof . Lichtenberg, Schöneweide, Westhafen and Grunewald were planned as further stations in Berlin.
Deportation memorials
Further deportation memorials in (former) Germany in the context of train stations:
- Berlin - Memorial platform 17 , Berlin-Grunewald train station
- Darmstadt - memorial freight yard
- Hamburg - Denk-Mal freight wagon , Hamburg-Winterhude
- Cologne - Cologne Messe / Deutz train station
- Stuttgart - Memorial at the Nordbahnhof
- Vienna - Aspangbahnhof
- Wiesbaden - Deportation memorial slaughterhouse ramp
See also
- Special trains in death , a traveling exhibition on the same topic
- Deportation of Jews from Germany
- History of the railways in Germany
- Cattle wagon # Holocaust and artistic processing
literature
- DB Museum Nürnberg (Ed.): In the service of democracy and dictatorship. The Reichsbahn 1920–1945. Catalog for the permanent exhibition in the DB Museum, Nuremberg 2002, ISBN 3-9807652-2-9 .
- Alfred Gottwaldt, Diana Schulle: The 'Deportations of Jews' from the German Reich 1941–1945. An annotated chronology. Wiesbaden, Marix 2005, ISBN 3-86539-059-5 .
- Raul Hilberg : Special trains to Auschwitz. Mainz 1981, ISBN 3921426189 .
- Christian Bachelier: La SNCF sous l'Occupation allemande ( Memento of 16 February 2001 in the Internet Archive ) (The French state railway under the German occupation..). Edited by Institut du temps présent (part of the CNRS ). Paris 2000.
- Serge Klarsfeld: Le Mémorial des enfants juifs déportés de France. La Shoah en France. Vol. 4. Commemorative volume for the children deported from France. Édition Fayard, Paris 2001, ISBN 2213610525 . (French, names all trains and the number of children deported on them and, of the majority, also the personal details and photographs)
- Heiner Lichtenstein: With the Reichsbahn into death. Mass transports in the Holocaust 1941 to 1945 . Cologne 1985, ISBN 3766308092 .
- Janusz Piekałkiewicz : The Deutsche Reichsbahn in World War II. Transpress, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3344708120 .
Web links
- Official website
- On the German rail network to Auschwitz: 11,000 children
- Chronology of the deportations from the German Reich (on the memorial book page of the German Federal Archives)
- Heide Platen: Train of Remembrance goes to Auschwitz. In: the daily newspaper , November 9, 2007
- “Train of memory” despite resistance. In: taz , February 16, 2008 (via an initiator of the train)
- Verena Walter: “Train of Remembrance” should go to Berlin
- The Train of Remembrance in Berlin on the grounds of the West Harbor, April 2008
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c German Bundestag: on the small question of the deputies Dr. Lukrezia Jochimsen, Petra Pau, Dr. Gesine Lötzsch, another MP and the DIE LINKE parliamentary group. - Printed matter 16/7875 - . February 11, 2008 (PDF file, 4 pages; 61 kB).
- ↑ Press release No. 04-07 from the initiative “Train of Remembrance” in Kassel: “Kassel was the central transshipment point for deportations from northern Hesse. One of these rail transports, into which over 1000 people were crammed, left Kassel on December 9, 1941 ”.
- ↑ Memorial Book - Victims of the Persecution of Jews under the National Socialist Tyranny in Germany 1933 - 1945. 2006 from the Federal Archives as an online database as a revised edition. The research can be carried out by name, place of birth, place of residence and deportation as well as date of birth and deportation. The database contains 158,726 names (as of January 11, 2008). URL http://www.bundesarchiv.de/gedenkbuch/
- ↑ Mehdorn reports representatives of the Jewish community ( Memento from May 13, 2008 in the Internet Archive ). In: Netzeitung , March 12, 2008
- ↑ Germany's past is on track 35 ( memento from September 14, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) sueddeutsche.de
- ↑ http://www.fr-online.de/in_und_ausland/politik/aktuell/?em_cnt=1314847 (link not available) Bahn continues to demand fees . In: Frankfurter Rundschau , April 6, 2008
- ^ Deutsche Bahn AG: DB donates to the foundation "Remembrance, Responsibility, Future" ( Memento from July 8, 2009 in the Internet Archive ). Press release of July 3, 2009
- ↑ Expert opinion on the income of the "Deutsche Reichsbahn" achieved under the Nazi dictatorship from transport services for the transportation of people from the German Reich and occupied Europe to concentration camps and similar facilities including their branches. Without taking into account the transports of forced laborers carried out by the "Deutsche Reichsbahn". Submitted by the Train of Remembrance , registered and non-profit association, November 2009
- ^ Victims of National Socialism demand help from Deutsche Bahn. In: dw.de
- ↑ Compensation claims against Deutsche Bahn. In: Der Spiegel , April 2, 2012
- ↑ Isabell Jürgens: "Train of Memory" is allowed to go to Berlin. In: morgenpost.de. May 5, 2010, accessed April 19, 2019 .
- ↑ Bahn puts “Train of Remembrance” on the siding ( memento of October 25, 2008 in the Internet Archive ). In: Netzeitung , April 8th
- ↑ Wowereit calls on railway to support the exhibition. In: Der Tagesspiegel , April 4, 2008.
- ^ Deutsche Bahn AG: “Train of Remembrance”: Stop at the Grunewald S-Bahn station possible - DB offers an alternative to the memorial platform 17. Press release of April 8, 2008
- ^ Deutsche Bahn AG Train of Remembrance: DB's attitude confirmed. Press release of April 10, 2008
- ↑ Federal Network Agency: Kurth appeals to the board of directors of Deutsche Bahn, "Train of Remembrance" should be made possible for a presentation at Berlin Central Station . Press release of April 10, 2008 (online as PDF file) ( Memento of December 11, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Transport minister ruffles rail chief. ( Memento from June 21, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) In: Rheinische Post , April 19, 2008
- ↑ Hans-Rüdiger Minow: "I shudder". In: sueddeutsche.de , April 13, 2008