German state railway confronts Holocaust role

[John Ashworth]

German state railway confronts Holocaust role


Kate Connolly in Berlin
Thursday January 24, 2008
The Guardian

Germany's state railway company admitted the central role its Nazi-era predecessor played in the Holocaust yesterday, saying that without the cooperation of the network the systematic murder of millions of people would never have been possible.

Launching its first touring exhibition about the Holocaust, Deutsche Bahn (DB) said the tracks and freight of the Reichsbahn were integral to the Nazis' extermination plan. "Without the Reichsbahn the industrial murder of millions of people would not have been possible," said DB's in-house historian, Susanne Kill.

At least 3 million Jews and Roma - including 1.5 million children - were gathered from across Germany and Nazi-occupied Europe and transported on the Reichsbahn to extermination camps. Adult prisoners and children over four were even charged a fare, earning the railways millions of Reichsmarks. Trainloads of 400 or more, which amounted to massive overcrowding, received a 50% discount.

But the exhibition, whose title translates as Special Trains to Death and which opened in central Berlin's Potsdamer Platz, has been controversial.

The head of DB, Hartmut Mehdorn, long resisted the idea of showing it at a working railway station, lest it "put off" commuters from using the trains. But supporters said exhibiting it at a railway station would increase its impact and the numbers of people who saw it.

Yesterday the transport minister, Wolfgang Tiefensee, who pushed for the exhibition to proceed, told the Guardian: "I'm glad that people will be confronted with this topic in a public place on their way to or from work, because the question is still one for everyone, not just the railways to answer: 'how was it possible that people allowed such crimes to happen?'"

[John Ashworth]

SPIEGEL ONLINE - January 23, 2008, 05:43 PM
URL: http://www.spiegel.de/international/ger ... 43,00.html

AFTER YEARS OF CONTROVERSY
Exhibition Highlights Role of German Railway in Holocaust

An exhibition dedicated to the role of the German national railway in the Holocaust has opened in Berlin. It marks the end of years of quarreling over whether the exhibition should be allowed to be shown in German train stations.

After years of controversy, an exhibition dedicated to the role played by the Reichsbahn -- the predecessor to today's Deutsche Bahn, the German national railway -- in transporting Jews to their deaths in concentration camps is finally being shown in Germany's train stations.

The exhibition, entitled "Chartered Trains to Death -- Deportation with the German Reichsbahn," opened Wednesday at the Potsdamer Platz train station in Berlin. Focusing on the fate of around 11,000 Jewish children who were deported from France, the exhibition can be seen in Berlin until Feb. 11, after which it will travel to other cities, including Frankfurt, Munich, Münster, Schwerin and Halle.

The exhibition was an initiative of the German-French Nazi hunter Beate Klarsfeld and her husband Serge. "It was our wish to show the children," said Klarsfeld, speaking at the opening Wednesday. An earlier version of the exhibition was successfully shown at 18 railway stations in France over a period of three years.

However, Deutsche Bahn CEO Hartmut Mehdorn originally did not want the exhibition to be shown within German train stations, arguing that it was not an appropriate location for the subject matter. Eventually Mehdorn gave in at the end of 2006, after the German Transport Ministry put its weight behind the project.

"Dealing with our history in a responsible fashion is a pre-condition for democracy and tolerance," said Transport Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee at the exhibition's opening. He said there had been "obstacles" which had to be overcome in the run-up to the exhibition. Tiefensee had publicly argued with Mehdorn in 2006 over the question of whether the exhibition should be shown in German train stations.

Mehdorn himself was not present at the opening, where Deutsche Bahn was represented by board member Margret Suckale. "The Reichsbahn without a doubt played a supporting role in the Nazi genocide," she said in a speech.

The Reichsbahn was responsible for transporting around 3 million Holocaust victims to their deaths during the Third Reich. "The industrial murder of millions of people would not have been possible without the Reichsbahn," Deutsche Bahn historian Susanne Kill told the news agency Agence France Presse.

"Chartered Trains to Death" is not the only exhibition devoted to the role of the Reichsbahn in the Holocaust currently on show in Germany. A train-mounted exhibition called "Train of Commemoration," which is not related to the Klarsfeld exhibition, is currently making a six- month journey from Frankfurt to Auschwitz.

dgs/afp


© SPIEGEL ONLINE 2008

[Nathan Berelowitz]

Very interesting this, because there are lots of reminders of the railways part in these death trains. There is a railway cattle truck plinthed on a short section of track close to Auswitz, as a reminder of how they got there. Very good initiative. The Japanese should do the same thing

[John Ashworth]

Nathan, I thought you (and your mum) would be interested after your visit to Auschwitz a while ago. I've never been to Auschwitz, but I have visited Dachau and Bergen-Belsen. A moving experience.