Subscribe now to our free newsletter (German). Walking along the Gleis 17 memorial today, it is possible to discover the dates and destinations of the deportations that took place from Berlin from October 1941 all the way until the final phase of the war. I hope youll return to Berlin soon to visit not only the memorial at Grunewald station, but also other Holocaust memorials throughout the capital city. A second part of the memorial is the vegetation that has spread between the tracks: it is a symbol that no train will ever leave the station at this track again. The Platform 17 Memorial at Grunewald Station commemorates the thousands of Jews who were deported from Berlin on Deutsche Reichsbahn trains from this platform. more, Berlin districts and suburbs with information on residential areas, infrastructure, events, local authorities and leisure activities. Present in the vicinity of a train station are very distinct and familiar sounds: the racket of heavy locomotives chugging down the rail and the screech of high-friction braking. 
No business company can whitewash its history or choose which events in its past it wishes to remember. 
Could there be a connection between this Grunewald and the Grunewald Convent established by Fr. A total of 35 trains transporting 17,000 Jews departed from Platform 17 (German: Gleis 17) directly to Auschwitz. Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Berlin, Holocaust, Holocaust Education, Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, teaching history matters, Track 17. Your email address will not be published. No extermination camp or deportation point was constructed on the current site of the Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe. Change). Grunewald station and its tracks were incorporated into Berlins S-Bahn train network in 1928. This will definitely be on my list of things to see when I make it to Berlin one of these days. Many companies including the Deutsche Reichsbahn (German Imperial Rail) were actively complicit in the machinery of mass murder during Nazi rule. Who Was Really Responsible For The Reichstag Fire? To mark the Reichbahns collaboration in deporting people to camps and their deaths, present-day Deutsche Bahn AG established a memorial at track 17. Unlike the thousands who were mercilessly sent from here to their deaths, visitors to this site can now descend back into the train station and continue to go about their lives. Learn more about the history of East German and life behind the Iron Curtain with our Republic Of Fear tours. Not weighty tomes, but maybe a picture and a note from the diary. Neither of the two German states had a central memorial to the victims of the deportations by the Reichsbahn. Open to the elements and free of charge, the memorial is accessed either from the underground passage inside the station or from the street ramp outside; follow the signs for Mahnmal Gleis 17 (Memorial at track 17). These places in the capital are dedicated to remembrance and commemoration of past events. Can be reached from Berlin Grunewald S-Bahn station. Each object states the date of a transport, the number of deportees, the point of departure in Berlin and the destination. Since 1991, a concrete wall with negative imprints of human bodies has commemorated the long walks and marches to the deportation stations. Source: Berlin.de | All texts, photographs and graphics on this site are protected by copyright. Theresienstadt is the only destination. To stop and listen, the sounds could easily be human: faint shouts and cries. 160-metre long platform, which had been demolished in the meantime. The intelligent conclusion being that it was simply a measure of both with more than the fair share of the latter. Near the station entrance there is a plaque detailing the history of the station and its role in The Holocaust. Opposite is the concrete wall memorial on the left. The jury voted for the design submitted by the team of architects Hirsch, Lorch and Wandel in Saarbrcken and Frankfurt am Main. The memorial commemorates the victims, is a warning to future generations, and a place of remembrance and. In 1985, the year that celebrated that 150th anniversary of the railway in Germany, the management boards of the railways in both West and East Germany still found it difficult to even mention this chapter of railway history. What are the Brass Plaques on German Sidewalks? On 27 January 1998 the Deutsche Bahn established a memorial entitled "Gleis 17" (Platform 17). Photo: 7 Dec []. Various measures had to be taken to create the footpath around Platform 17, such as securing the severely dilapidated platform walls and reconstructing the approx. In the field of stelae (Holocaust memorial in central Berlin), in English Nearby, an unseen train is passing, the click on the tracks steadily growing louder, then trailing off slowly in the wind. In 1942 trains left directly for Auschwitz and Theresienstadt concentration camps. The expansion of existing concentration camp facilities and wholescale utilisation of industrial killing facilities serving to rapidly multiply the number of victims already dispatched through other earlier methods such as those employed by the Einsatzgruppen. The winning design was submitted by architects Nicolaus Hirsch, Wolfgang Lorch and Andrea Wandel. Not the same could be said for those Jews unfortunate enough to have found themselve in the territories occupied by Nazi troops following the start of the Second World War in 1939 with the invasion of Poland. Hi, Timo. More than 50-thousand Jews from Berlin were deported from this Grunewald station alone. Not the same can be said for the Gleis 17 memorial at the Grnewald train station which in its current form was unveiled in 1998 chronologically documenting the 186 deportation trains that left Berlin from 1941 until 1945, transporting more than 50,000 Jewish Berliners to their fates further east. Starting on 18 October 1941 until February 1945, the adjacent goods station was one of the major sites of deportation of Jews from Berlin. This became painfully clear when the reunified railways were merged to form Deutsche Bahn AG. The entrance hall modelled on a castle gate was finished in 1899. Deutsche Bahn AG hopes that the memorial will help to ensure that the crimes committed during the National Socialist regime will never be forgotten. Platform17 is open to the public and can be reached from Berlin Grunewald S-Bahn station. more. Simultaneously, dedicated. Many sent to their deaths in places such as Theresienstadt and Auschwitz or the ghettos of d or Riga. Now you know all the secrets. The memorial was inaugurated on 27 January 1998 and is closely linked with the monument designed by Karol Broniatowski and erected by the Federal Land of Berlin in 1991, which deals with the journey leading up to the deportees' arrival on the platform. The last deportation to take place from Berlin left on March 27th 1945 - exactly one month later the Soviet armies would encircle the city and begin their final push into the Nazi capital. Germany's eventful history is reflected in Berlin's many memorials, monuments and cemeteries. Now go below, into the subground museum/memorial. Until March 1945, about 180 further transports from Berlin to the ghettos followed; from August 1942, transports were also directly headed for extermination camps. (Source: Gleis 17 Memorial Berlin Grunewald), At first, the special trains consisted of passenger cars, yet from 1942 on, the Reichsbahn increasingly began using cattle cars for the deportations.. I made the photos above on 7 December 2015. This convent was in Mercer County, Ohio, 60 miles north of Dayton, Ohio. I hope you visit Berlin and Grunewald station soon. Thank you so much! From this point, marriages and extramarital intercourse between Jews and non-Jews would be forbidden. The vegetation thats been left to grow around the track over the years is a visible symbol and an unspoken promise to all: that no train will leave track 17 ever again. (LogOut/ The architects Nikolaus Hirsch, Wolfgang Lorch and Andrea Wandel have produced a book with further information about the memorial entitled "Gleis 17" (ISBN 978-1-933128 60-3; 19, published by Sternberg Verlag, in German). The police and SS had assembled the people for this transport in a collection camp for Jews, which was located in the synagogue in Levetzowstrae in Berlins Moabit district. And then the whistle blows. Destination: Lodz Ghetto. The walking surface is uneven. It is a beautiful summer day. Learn more about the Battle of Berlinand explore this urban battlefieldwith our Battle of Berlin tours. Berlin-Grunewald was connected to the S-Bahn network on 11 June 1928. Grunewald station, underground passage to track 17. So severe were these restrictions that by 1938, around half of the German Jewish population had left the country although those who did were often expected to contribute up to 90% of their wealth to the state as a tax upon leaving the country. Memorial to Sinti and Roma Murdered by Nazis, in English In the course of coming to terms with its role in the deportation, the Deutsche Bahn held a limited competition for th design of a new memorial. Hi, Becky. I knew, of course, about a place called Grunewald in Germany, but this is the first time I heard of it as a place where Jews were deported to be put to death, if indeed this is the same Grunewald. However, the most infamous of the Nazi death camps, Auschwitz, notably does not appear until much later when you walk along the platform of the track to the second side with deportations starting in November 1942.
After two-year delay, author Matthew Rozell visits Magdeburg,Germany, teachinghistorymatters.com/2022/06/19/for. A competition was held amongst a limited number of entrants. The sisters who were buried there were moved to the cemetery at the motherhouse of the Sisters of the Precious Blood in Dayton, Ohio. The station opened on 1 August 1879 on the Wetzlarer Bahn from Berlin to Blankenheim and Wetzlar, the southwestern continuation of the Stadtbahn. Berlin-Grunewald is a railway station in the middle class Grunewald district of Berlin. Even before the inauguration of the Platform 17 Memorial in 1998, there had been commemorative plaques at Grunewald station. Our state of the art bus brings us to a place seemingly on the edge of nowhere in Berlin.
Note that for later. Just tracks that end abruptly and loading platforms, one spur of rails below, but no train. The Grnewald train station was one of three deportation stations in Berlin used by the Nazis the other two being Moabit and Anhalter Bahnhof. Things to do in Berlin this weekend and in the coming month, selected by our editors. Simultaneously, dedicated Einsatzgruppen (special task forces), coordinated by Heinrich Himmlers SS (Schutzstaffel), would be entrusted with the job of massacring civilians, members of the intelligentsia, Communists, alleged partisans, and Jews. Was The Fall Of The Berlin Wall An Accident? more, River cruises and boat trips in Berlin on Spree river, on Landwehr canal or over the Wannsee. In the Second World War, the station was the principal location for deporting Berlin Jews to the East during The Holocaust. The Final Leg of the Filming Tour: Omaha Beach, Hill 314, and the Normandy American Cemetery. The memorial consists of 186 cast steel plates embedded in the railroad ballast. A man walks past part of the Platform 17 Memorial in the Grunewald district. The first deportation train to leave from this station departed on October 18th 1941, with 1,013 Jews the day the systematic deportation of Berlins Jewish population began. However, there was no permanent reminder of the systematic violence againgst Jewish people that took place here. Learn more about the history of Nazi Germany and life in Hitlers Third Reich with our Capital Of Tyranny tours. [] no trains will ever leave again. Change), You are commenting using your Twitter account. Each plate includes the transport date, the number of people deported, and the transports destination. Holocaust historian Raul Hilberg would famously state that the persecution of European Jews would follow a three-part trajectory, where Jews were initially told: The rapid conquest of the east by the German Wehrmacht meant that millions more Jews fell under Nazi control from 1939 and following the invasion of the Soviet Union, the implementation of what would be called, The Best Of Berlin - The All-In One Highlights, The Capital of Tyranny - The Rise & Fall Of The Third Reich, The Republic of Fear - Life Behind The Iron Curtain, The Battle Of Berlin - The Final Days Of Hitler's City, The Glory of Prussia - The Iron Kingdom & The Golden Cage, The Invention Of Hell - The Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ), would be entrusted with the job of massacring civilians, members of the intelligentsia, Communists, alleged partisans, and Jews. From this point, marriages and extramarital intercourse between Jews and non-Jews would be forbidden. The establishment of detention camps and ghettos across occupied Europe would see the continents Jewish population gradually segregated and corralled into these compounds as part of an organised resettlement strategy. I leave the station by the southeast exit, and turn left to ascend the ramp along the side street. [] Citys oldest Jewish cemetery Grunewald train station, track 17 Memorial to murdered Jews in Europe Memorial to murdered Sinti and []. Learn how your comment data is processed. Specifically, that Grunewald is the name for a vast forested area in the western reaches of Berlin would be self-evident to Berliners. After reunification of East and West Germany in 1990, the two separate railways also merged to form Deutsche Bahn in 1994, and calls arose for the new company to acknowledge its dark past. By the end of the war more than 50,000 Jews had been deported through this station. The last transport out of Berlin. The Final Leg of the Filming Tour: Omaha Beach, Hill 314, and the Normandy AmericanCemetery. Youre not alone in not knowing about this memorial. A breeze ripples gently, the trees reclaiming the site shimmer and whisper. (LogOut/ The contrast could not be clearer. This being due to the priority the Nazi administration placed on dealing with the Jewish question first in Poland and then in other territories such as Germany following the negotiations at the Wannsee Conference in January 1942. If they could find a country willing to accept them. Another plate marks the last train of record (so far) leaving Grunewald on 1945 March 27 when 18 Jews were deported to Theresienstadt; blank plates leave room for additional commemorations with new uncovered information. Dropping into the underground passage, signage points to the memorial at track 17. Thank you for your comment and for stopping by! In the Berlin borough of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, Grunewald station lies on the S7 S-Bahn line serving central Berlin city, the city of Potsdam to the southwest, and Ahrensfelde to the northeast in the Berlin borough of Marzahn-Hellersdorf. Take note: the distance between the locations previous use and its present form is as important as the opportunity for contemplation it now offers as a memorial. March 27th, 1945. My brother-in-law, Raymond Flaute and his wife, my sister Rita, lived in the convent house for years before selling it. When analysing this memorial it is important to note the destinations, that many of the earlier trains would deliver their human cargo to places like d in Poland and Riga in Latvia, the former a ghetto transformed into a major industrial centre, manufacturing war supplies for the Wehrmacht and the latter, where many of the arrivals were immediately massacred in the nearby Rumbula forest or imprisoned in a ghetto to be murdered later. Archeologist David Starbuck, 1949-2020. Unlike the other similar memorials throughout Berlin it is exceptional in that this was previously a perpetrator site the cast-iron plates laid on both sides of track 17 documenting all the journeys from Berlin with the number of deportees and destinations, from exactly where these people were deported from. This is our warning: to maintain basic human dignity, to oppose all blatant disregard for life with courage and without hesitation. Deportation. From the initial stages of the Nazi takeover, with the proclamations of a new Volksgemeinschaft (Peoples Community) and the use of extrajudicial imprisonment to deal with the Gemeinschaftsfremde (Community Aliens), a system of coordinated oppression was being forged to implement official Nazi Party policy. Change), You are commenting using your Facebook account. Francis de Sales Brunner, a missionary of the Society of the Precious Blood? White roses lie on the grounds of the Platform 17 Memorial in Berlin-Grunewald. *********************************************************************. I agree.
When inaugurated in 1998, this memorial far removed from the centre of the city was largely a matter of German train company Deutsche Bahn recognising the role of its predecessor organisation Deutsche Reichsbahn in the Holocaust providing a place of pilgrimagefor people to observe this history and pay their respects to the victims. Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Now, tell me, who is going to pay for all of this? Sisters of the Precious Blood lived on the farm there for years before it was sold. They may not be copied, reproduced, translated or used in any other way. The first train of record departed Grunewald on 1941 October 18 when 1251 Jews were deported to d. The station changed its name to Grunewald in 1884 when the old Grunewald station began its new life as Halensee station. Regular transports to Theresienstadt in nowadays Czech Republic and Warsaw, Poland also featured prominently in this chronological memorial. The reasons how Franz Brunner arrived in the United States at the time around Bismarcks Kulturkampf against the Catholic Church are likely no accident. Until this time, persecution of Germanys Jewish minority had largely taken the form of legal restrictions designed to create unfavourable circumstances for those who the Nazi state deemed racially impure and encourage emigration, at a high cost to any who chose that route. exclusion of Jews from civil service, a ban on Jewish doctors, and the Nuremburg laws of 1935 formalising the definition of who exactly would be classified as Jewish based on the maternal and paternal line. I kept an extensive diary and took tons of photographs. Memorial Museums, in English Well, who do you think? Track 17: in commemoration to people who were deported to death camps on Deutsche Reichsbahn trains, 1941-1945. Hello, Dr. Ranley. Did The Nazis Invent The Bicycle Reflector? For Fathers Day: A father and son go towar. Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf borough, city-state of Berlin, in German The Battle Of Berlin 1945 - A Day By Day Account, The Potsdam Conference 1945 - A Day By Day Account, 55 Things You Should Know Before Visiting Berlin, The Best Of Berlin Tour The All-In-One Berlin Highlights Tour, The Capital Of Tyranny Tour The Rise & Fall Of The Third Reich, The Republic Of Fear Tour Life Behind The Iron Curtain, The Battle Of Berlin Tour The Final Days Of Hitlers City, The Glory Of Prussia Tour The Iron Kingdom & The Golden Cage, The Invention Of Hell Tour The Sachsenhausen Memorial & Museum, Explore The State Museums On Museum Island, Cross The Cold War Border At Checkpoint Charlie, Visit The Site Of Adolf Hitler's Fhrerbunker, Journey Into The Memorial For The Murdered Jews Of Europe, Explore The Former Jewish Quarter - Spandauer Vorstadt, Explore Bernauer Strasse - Visit The Berlin Wall, Visit The Soviet War Memorial In Treptower Park, Enter The Palace Of Tears - The Trnenpalast, Explore Erich Mielke's Office At The Stasi Museum, Visit The Oldest Church In Berlin - The Nikolaikirche, Walk Through The Ruins Of Anhalter Bahnhof, Visit The Soviet War Memorial In The Tiergarten, See The Georg Elser Memorial On Wilhelmstrasse, Step Inside The Kaiser Wilhelm Gedchtniskirche, Visit The Schloss Charlottenburg Mausoleum. A TRAIN NEAR MAGDEBURG-HOLOCAUST FILM PROJECT, 1945 Manifest List-Names of those liberated at Farsleben, Germany, April 13th 1945. In-fact the area surrounding this memorial also features other sites dedicated to the other groups targetted by Nazi racial policy and state violence a memorial for the Roma and Sinti, a memorial for the persecuted homosexuals, and a memorial for the first group to suffer at the hands of the Nazis on a genocidal level the mentally handicapped, the depressed, the people who were considered life unworthy of life and murdered as part of the T4 euthanasia programme. Where are you going? Southeast entrance with signage to the memorial.
Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window), Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window), Memorial to Sinti and Roma Murdered by Nazis, Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf borough, city-state of Berlin, Fotoeins Friday: International Holocaust Remembrance Day | Fotoeins Fotografie, International Holocaust Remembrance Day: observations from Germany | Fotoeins Fotografie. To keep the memory of the victims of National Socialism alive, the management board decided to erect one central memorial at Grunewald station on behalf of Deutsche Bahn AG, commemorating the deportation transports handled by Deutsche Reichsbahn during the years of the Nazi regime. Thank you for stopping by and for your comment. Germany and Israel. Oct. 18, 1941. BerlinOnline/argus/flashpics/fotolia.com, Guided Tour: Lost Place Teufelsberg with US Listening Station, River Cruise "World Heritage Cruise": Palaces and Gardens of Berlin and Potsdam, Forest fire in Wannsee: 500 square metres in flames, Emergency shelter for refugees in Tegel ready to go into operation, Berlin switches off illuminations of sights and landmarks, Statistics show further increase in population in Berlin, Warning strike on Wednesday: Lufthansa cancels almost all flights from BER. Zur Mahnung an uns, jeder Missachtung des Lebens und der Wrde des Menschen mutig und ohne Zgern entgegenzutreten. On a cool grey late-autumn afternoon, Im on an S-Bahn train heading towards Potsdam. During the Second World War this site served as the back garden of a Prussian palace, adjacent to the site of Hitlers Fhrerbunker, but relatively untouched by the barbarism of the period. Heart of Berlin. A long list of people deemed part of groups that needed to be annihilated to pacify the newly acquired territories. On that day, the first of the mass deportations from Berlin, 1251 people were rounded up and sent to board the trains of the Reichsbahn. The station is a little bit out of the way (nicht im Zentrum) and Id go so far as to say that it doesnt get as much press as the big Holocaustdenkmal (Stelefeld) between Postdamer Platz and Brandenburger Tor. From the initial stages of the Nazi takeover, with the proclamations of a new, In the case of the countrys Jewish population, this would mean the. I need to go there next time I am in the area. Tickets for the best events in Berlin: shows, festivals, theatre, opera, concerts, tours, fairs, and more. By the end of the year, Jews living in Poland would be required to wear yellow stars on the upper left part of their chest as identification a measure that would not be introduced in Germany until two years later, in September 1941. More than 50-thousand Jews from Berlin were deported from this station alone. If they could find a country willing to accept them. And contrary to many assumptions, it was a journey that led to profound understandings about life, not death. A long list of people deemed part of groups that needed to be annihilated to pacify the newly acquired territories. I had no idea about this! Berlin city portal, in German. S-Bahn station Grunewald is about 20 minutes from Berlin central station with the S-Bahn S7 train, direction (Richtung) Potsdam. The spectre of cruelty, despair, and suffering clings to the abandoned track; seven decades in the past dont seem very far. This post appears on Fotoeins Fotopress at fotoeins.com as http://wp.me/p1BIdT-7vx. Get your tickets here. Are they tricks of the mind, or are the dead speaking? Violent attacks would occur but largely like summer thunderstorms, as described by one prominent journalist of the time, loud and cruel but sporadic rather than standardised. We are being rocked by white Nationalism in the States, thanks to the orange-haired Hitlers (Trumps) legacy. The track is maintained but no train will ever leave this platform again. Which way do you turn? The vegetation that has developed at Platform 17 over the years has been left to grow between the rails and now forms an integral part of the memorial as a symbol that no more trains will ever depart from this platform. After all, there is a war on. Inaugurated in 1998 the memorial was designed and built by architects Hirsch, Lorch, and Wandel who were very mindful of the 1991 Karol Broniatowski memorial near the stations entrance. (by Karol Broniatowski, 1991), Memorial by Karol Broniatowski, 18 October 1991: bronze plaque (above) and concrete wall with hollowed out imprints of human bodies, Metal slabs surround both sides of track 17, 1st metal plate: 1st recorded train on 1941 October 18: 1251 Jews deported from Berlin to d, Last metal plate: train on record leaving 1945 March 27: 18 Jews deported from Berlin to Theresienstadt. I am grateful for the knowledge that this haunted embarkation station existed but so sorry that I did not know when I last visited Berlin. You likely know that the German noun Grunewald is a compound word which is literally green forest. The word itself is generic and applicable to all sorts of places in German-speaking lands.
Why I Loathe 'The Boy in the Striped Pajamas'. Zum Gedenken an die mehr als 50.000 Juden Berlins, die zwischen Oktober 1941 und Februar 1945 vorwiegend vom Gterbahnhof Grunewald aus durch den nationalsozialistischen Staat in seine Vernichtungslager deportiert und ermordet wurden. On these plates, the dates and destinations of all deportation trains from Berlin are noted in chronological order, as well as the number of Jews deported in each case. Where the trains destination was Auschwitz Berlin Locals, Grunewald Train Station A Teachers Guide to the Holocaust. As we prepare to board the bus to our final stop for today, July 6, I pause by myself. The conveyance of the Jews was billed to the Jewish community: 4 pfennigs were charged per kilometer for adults and 2 pfennigs for children above the age of four. The Jewish community of Berlin is essentially forced to buy tickets to its annihilation. A year ago I took one of the most transformative journeys of my life, with 24 fellow educators, to study the Holocaust and the Jewish resistance to it, in Washington, DC, Germany, the Czech Republic, and Poland. We need to be vigilant, speak up, and attempt to educate/disarm (literally) the uneducated and xenophobic/racist masses in the U.S. May these Holocaust victims memories be a blessing to those families and friends who lost them to this campaign of cruelty and murder. Some useful links related to the Gleis 17 Memorial: The Berlin government page on the Gleis 17 Memorial. German inscription: In memory of the tens of thousands of Jewish citizens of Berlin, who were deported by the Nazis between October 1941 and February 1945 from here to death camps and murdered. What ties almost all these sites together, more than their shared commemoration, is that (with the exception of the T4 memorial) they were all constructed in locations that have nothing to do with the crimes they reference. It is served by the S-Bahn line . The Platform 17 Memorial was inaugurated on January 27, 1998 and is open to the public.
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