Sonderzüge in den Tod
Encyclopedia
Sonderzüge in den Tod is the title of a touring exhibition commemorating the deportation
of hundreds and thousands of people by the former Reichsbahn to the concentration- and extermination camps. It was shown in France in 2006 and, in a different form, in Germany in 2008. The exhibition was mostly located at railway stations.
. It was at Wittemberge until 12 May and from 18 May to 15 June at the central railway station at Münster
. Stop-overs in Cologne
, Frankfurt
, Dresden
and Munich
followed. From the 14 to 26 November, it was at the central railway station at Mannheim
. The Deutsche Bahn
estimated that by April 2008, 30,000 people had visited the exhibition. For the year 2008, around 80,000 visitors were expected. In 2009, the exhibition was planned to continue and be lent to cities which were interested. The first location was Hanau
in January 2009. From 22 January, it was at Chemnitz
, from 15 February at the Jewish Museum in Dorsten
.
The exhibition was designed by the Deutsche Bahn
in cooperation with Beate and Serge Klarsfeld together with a cititzen’s initiative, and included elements of the exhibition Enfants juifs déportés de France, which was shown for over three years in railway stations of the French SNCF
. 15 of the 40 information boards are based on the collection of the French exhibition.
, the chairman of the Deutsche Bahn, justified the refusal of the exhibition: “At railway stations, there is haste and hurry. They are not locations for a topic as serious as the Holocaust. There can’t be any serious and deep study of such a topic at railway stations. We know our stations and the people who pass through them. I even tend towards saying that it would be counterproductive to realize it. “Shock and go” doesn’t work any more.”
Furthermore, he stated that the Deutsche Bahn “has portrayed its history in an exemplary manner compared with other big companies.” He referred to a permanent exhibition in the DB-museum Nuremberg
which has 200,000 visitors per year, the participation at the “Entschädigungsfonds für ehemalige Zwangsarbeiter” (a fund which compensates former forced laborers), the education of the company's apprentices and its support of the movie “Der letzte Zug” (The last train). He claimed that Beate and Serge Klarsfeld had tried to “force the exhibition on the company”. After the company had refused to let this happen, it claimed to have read in the press that it had tried to block the examination of the Nazi era. Mehdorn announced the establishment of a touring exhibition which should be located close to railway stations.
On 1 December 2006, the German federal minister of transport, Wolfgang Tiefensee
, and Mehdorn agreed upon the establishment of a touring exhibition about the deportations to be located at railway stations .
Deportation
Deportation means the expulsion of a person or group of people from a place or country. Today it often refers to the expulsion of foreign nationals whereas the expulsion of nationals is called banishment, exile, or penal transportation...
of hundreds and thousands of people by the former Reichsbahn to the concentration- and extermination camps. It was shown in France in 2006 and, in a different form, in Germany in 2008. The exhibition was mostly located at railway stations.
History and concept of the exhibition
In Germany, the exhibition was opened on 23 January 2008 on the mezzanine floor of the Berlin Potsdamer Platz railway station. It was subsequently located at the central railway station at Halle (Saale). Between 28 March and 10 April, it was at the central railway station at SchwerinSchwerin
Schwerin is the capital and second-largest city of the northern German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. The population, as of end of 2009, was 95,041.-History:...
. It was at Wittemberge until 12 May and from 18 May to 15 June at the central railway station at Münster
Münster
Münster is an independent city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located in the northern part of the state and is considered to be the cultural centre of the Westphalia region. It is also capital of the local government region Münsterland...
. Stop-overs in Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
, Frankfurt
Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...
, Dresden
Dresden
Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
and Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
followed. From the 14 to 26 November, it was at the central railway station at Mannheim
Mannheim
Mannheim is a city in southwestern Germany. With about 315,000 inhabitants, Mannheim is the second-largest city in the Bundesland of Baden-Württemberg, following the capital city of Stuttgart....
. The Deutsche Bahn
Deutsche Bahn
Deutsche Bahn AG is the German national railway company, a private joint stock company . Headquartered in Berlin, it came into existence in 1994 as the successor to the former state railways of Germany, the Deutsche Bundesbahn of West Germany and the Deutsche Reichsbahn of East Germany...
estimated that by April 2008, 30,000 people had visited the exhibition. For the year 2008, around 80,000 visitors were expected. In 2009, the exhibition was planned to continue and be lent to cities which were interested. The first location was Hanau
Hanau
Hanau is a town in the Main-Kinzig-Kreis, in Hesse, Germany. It is located 25 km east of Frankfurt am Main. Its station is a major railway junction.- Geography :...
in January 2009. From 22 January, it was at Chemnitz
Chemnitz
Chemnitz is the third-largest city of the Free State of Saxony, Germany. Chemnitz is an independent city which is not part of any county and seat of the government region Direktionsbezirk Chemnitz. Located in the northern foothills of the Ore Mountains, it is a part of the Saxon triangle...
, from 15 February at the Jewish Museum in Dorsten
Dorsten
Dorsten is a town in the district of Recklinghausen in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany and has a population of just below 80,000.Dorsten is situated on the western rim of Westphalia bordering the Rhineland. Its historical old town lies on the south bank of the river Lippe and the Wesel–Datteln...
.
The exhibition was designed by the Deutsche Bahn
Deutsche Bahn
Deutsche Bahn AG is the German national railway company, a private joint stock company . Headquartered in Berlin, it came into existence in 1994 as the successor to the former state railways of Germany, the Deutsche Bundesbahn of West Germany and the Deutsche Reichsbahn of East Germany...
in cooperation with Beate and Serge Klarsfeld together with a cititzen’s initiative, and included elements of the exhibition Enfants juifs déportés de France, which was shown for over three years in railway stations of the French SNCF
SNCF
The SNCF , is France's national state-owned railway company. SNCF operates the country's national rail services, including the TGV, France's high-speed rail network...
. 15 of the 40 information boards are based on the collection of the French exhibition.
Discourse on the exhibition
The exhibition was preceded by a public argument between Beate and Serge Klarsfeld and the Deutsche Bahn after the company had refused to show the French exhibition at German railway stations. In an interview in November 2006, Hartmut MehdornHartmut Mehdorn
Hartmut Mehdorn is a German manager and current in the supervisory board of Air Berlin, until May 2009: CEO of Deutsche Bahn AG.-Biography:...
, the chairman of the Deutsche Bahn, justified the refusal of the exhibition: “At railway stations, there is haste and hurry. They are not locations for a topic as serious as the Holocaust. There can’t be any serious and deep study of such a topic at railway stations. We know our stations and the people who pass through them. I even tend towards saying that it would be counterproductive to realize it. “Shock and go” doesn’t work any more.”
Furthermore, he stated that the Deutsche Bahn “has portrayed its history in an exemplary manner compared with other big companies.” He referred to a permanent exhibition in the DB-museum Nuremberg
Nuremberg
Nuremberg[p] is a city in the German state of Bavaria, in the administrative region of Middle Franconia. Situated on the Pegnitz river and the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal, it is located about north of Munich and is Franconia's largest city. The population is 505,664...
which has 200,000 visitors per year, the participation at the “Entschädigungsfonds für ehemalige Zwangsarbeiter” (a fund which compensates former forced laborers), the education of the company's apprentices and its support of the movie “Der letzte Zug” (The last train). He claimed that Beate and Serge Klarsfeld had tried to “force the exhibition on the company”. After the company had refused to let this happen, it claimed to have read in the press that it had tried to block the examination of the Nazi era. Mehdorn announced the establishment of a touring exhibition which should be located close to railway stations.
On 1 December 2006, the German federal minister of transport, Wolfgang Tiefensee
Wolfgang Tiefensee
Wolfgang Tiefensee is a German SPD politician. He was the Federal Minister for Transport, Building and Urban Development in the grand coalition cabinet led by Angela Merkel since November 22, 2005....
, and Mehdorn agreed upon the establishment of a touring exhibition about the deportations to be located at railway stations .
Literature
- DB Museum Nürnberg (Hrsg.): Im Dienst von Demokratie und Diktatur. Die Reichsbahn 1920–1945. Katalog zur Dauerausstellung im DB Museum, Nürnberg 2002. 3-9807652-2-9
- Raul HilbergRaul HilbergRaul Hilberg was an Austrian-born American political scientist and historian. He was widely considered to be the world's preeminent scholar of the Holocaust, and his three-volume, 1,273-page magnum opus, The Destruction of the European Jews, is regarded as a seminal study of the Nazi Final...
: Sonderzüge nach Auschwitz. Mainz 1981. ISBN 3-921426-18-9 - Serge Klarsfeld: Le Mémorial des enfants juifs déportés de France. La Shoah en France. Bd 4. Gedenkband an die aus Frankreich deportierten Kinder. Édition Fayard, Paris 2001. ISBN 2-213-61052-5
- Heiner Lichtenstein: Mit der Reichsbahn in den Tod. Massentransporte in den Holocaust 1941 bis 1945. Köln 1985. ISBN 3-7663-0809-2
- Janusz PiekalkiewiczJanusz PiekalkiewiczJanusz Piekałkiewicz was a Polish underground soldier, historian, writer, as well as a television and cinema director and producer. He was a world-renowned author on many aspects of World War II history; over 30 of his books have been printed, most of them in German, and later translated to other...
: Die Deutsche Reichsbahn im Zweiten Weltkrieg. Transpress, Stuttgart 1998. ISBN 3-344-70812-0 - Alfred Gottwaldt, Diana Schulle (Hrsg.): Die »Judendeportationen« aus dem Deutschen Reich 1941-1945. Wiesbaden 2007. ISBN 3-86539-059-5
External links
- Ausstellung „Sonderzüge in den Tod“ eröffnet. RBB 22 January 2008 with video
- DB zeigt auch 2009 die Ausstellung „Sonderzüge in den Tod“ Information of the Deutsche Bahn
- Enfants juifs déportés – Broschüre zur Ausstellung 2004–2006 (PDF-File, 8 MB, french.)
- MDR, Fernsehbeitrag in the magazine ttt, 27 January 2008
- Katharina Schuler: Eine Ausstellung erinnert nun an die Verstrickung der Deutschen Reichsbahn in den Holocaust. Der Eröffnung war ein langwieriger Streit vorausgegangen. In: ZEIT online 04/2008, 31 January 2008