To the protest demonstration in the "Historisches Kaufhaus"
("Historical Department Store") the initiators invited survivors of
a family in Freiburg, who had been successful in fleeing to France,
where the Nazis caught up with them. Few returned from the
concentration camps. Nine of Abraham family's 10 children were
shipped to Auschwitz over the rails of the German Reichsbahn in
cattle-cars. The Reichsbahn was paid 4 cents/person/kilometer. The
predecessor of the DB AG lined its pockets with payments from the
transport of at least 3 million doomed and pocketed for the
transport to the extermination camps, at least 120 million
Reichsmark. This would amount to approx. 60 million Euro today. As
Beate Klarsfeld (Fils et Filles des Deportes Juifs de France)
reported that the DB AG claimed financial problems as the reason
why the exhibition created in Paris concerning the train transport
of more than 11, 000 children cannot be shown in German train
stations, the audience responded indignantly. The identity of "the
real victim of the real criminal" disappears "in the accommodating
abstractions" and is banished from the contemporary, is the
formulation used in the speech of the German initiative "11,000
Children".
On Schedule
In spite of the unsettled weather, numerous mini-vans, autos
and approx. 50 cyclists drew the attention on Friday, May 6, in
downtown Berlin. The organizers had called for a convoy to the
scenes of Nazi crimes, the seats of the administrations of Nazi
criminals and to the addresses of the Nazi successor enterprises.
As the convoy approached the train station "Zoological Gartens", a
cordon of police blocked its route, prohibiting the demonstrators
from entering the halls of the station. As a result, there was a
traffic jam for about a half an hour at the level of the
Gedächtniskirche (Memorial Church). Using loudspeakers, the
participants reminded passersby of the role played by the
Reichsbahn in taking troops to the front, bringing the plundered
goods to Germany, as well as being indispensable for the transport
of slave labor and those victims doomed for liquidation. "In spite
of the need for intensified military transport capacity, the
'Section for Emigration and Evacuation' under the direction of
Adolf Eichmann, organized in close cooperation with the Reichsbahn
(...) the transport to the death camps" - "on schedule," was
explained in one address. The complicity of the Reichsbahn was also
mentioned in Weimar, where Sunday May 8, an information stand
("against forgetting") was erected on Theatre Square
(Theaterplatz).
Plausible
Even though protests against the DB AG continue and the
information has, in the meantime, reached thousands of travelers
the rail company's directorate maintains its refusal and prohibits
the exhibition in its stations. In a statement, made available to
this journal, the German Chancellor's Office sees this interdiction
as "plausible."
Paralleling
In the current attempts at "amnesia and denial" the German
government is participating in diverse variations. According to the
State Cultural Minister, Christina Weiss, May 8, 1945 did not halt
Berlin's domination over Europe, but rather halted "an unimaginable
self-destruction" of this "shattered continent".
1)Belonging also to this "complexity" is, in the opinion
of this Minister, the multifaceted suffering that German soldiers
experienced "as war prisoners." Also because of "flight and
banishment," May 8, 1945 will, for "many," signify "not the
beginning of peace." As Frau Weiss also complained in commemorating
the 60th Anniversary of Nazi capitulation, Germans had to overcome
"a difficult winter of hunger," (...) "in which the accommodations
for the population, at the end of the war, could not be ensured."
Together with the victims of the "crimes of the National Socialist
and the Soviet regimes" the Germans should "reevaluate their
earlier views," according to the minister in paralleling the German
mass crimes with their consequences for Europe.
Involved
Even the Russian President, Putin sees "the Germans" as
"victims," having to pay the price of the "irresponsibility of
their former leading politicians."
2)Accordingly millions of Reichsdeutsche (ethnic
Germans) were ideologically "poisoned" and became "involved" in the
war, so that on May 8, 1945, they stood before a "personal
tragedy." Germans should not "feel defaced" because of this past,
and should self-confidently exercise their rights worldwide.
1) Rede der Kulturstaatsministerin Christina Weiss am 27.
April 2005 im Deutschen Historischen Museum in Berlin bei der
Eröffnung der Ausstellung zum 60. Jahrestag des Kriegsendes
2) Nie wieder Krieg; Bild-Zeitung 07.05.2005
2) Nie wieder Krieg; Bild-Zeitung 07.05.2005