Since the beginning of the year, the initiative has endeavoured to persuade
German Railways to accept a French exhibition on the fate of around 11,000
murdered children.[1] They were captured by the German occupants in France,
between 1942 and 1944, and sent to their deaths on the rail route over Paris,
Saarbrücken, Mannheim, Frankfurt, Weimar, Leipzig and Dresden. The "German
State Railways" made millions for the death trains ending in Auschwitz. The
Jewish victims, of whom many thousand photos are now available, as well as
shocking children's letters, can be identified in the lifework of the married
couple Serge and Beate Klarsfeld (Paris). They succeeded in persuading the
French State Railways (SNCF) in allowing them to hold exhibitions in a total
of 18 French public stations, which were the former departure points of the
death trains.
Discarding the idea
When Beate Klarsfeld offered the German Railways to take charge of the
exhibition last year, the industry refused to hold the public commemoration
at the German Railway's stations on the circular route and referred her to
the train station museum in Nürnberg. In response, the German press accused
the German Railways of wanting to "transfer onto a railway siding" the memory
of having assisted the former Right wing party in murders, and wanting to
bury their historical responsibility as quickly as possible.[2] The head of
the synagogue community Saar, Richard Borg, requested that the German
Railways "deal with there inherited history responsibly", instead of
discarding the idea of the exhibition museum.[3] As a result, several hundred
artists appealed to the board of directors of the German Railways with an
"open letter" stating that it should reconsider its position of rejecting the
proposal once more. International organisations are also amongst the artists.
[4]
Confidentiality
In several public endeavours, including commemoration events in Frankfurt am
Main, Freiberg, Halle and Weimar [5], the board of directors of the German
Railways either did not answer, or they all made identical statements. It has
therefore been a "request" for a long time that the German Railways engage
themselves in "serious discussion" over the crimes committed by the
Nationalist Socialist. However, public exhibition of the children photos and
farewell letters are not included in this "request". With regards to this,
the initiative "Eleven Thousand Children", a private amalgamation of German
journalists and historians [6], proposed a face-to-face meeting with the
board of directors of the German railways with a high-ranking delegation. The
chairman of the German Railways industry was assured an encounter would be
treated as strictly confidential.
How to deal with it
According to correspondence dated the 7 July 2005, available at
german-foreign-policy.com, 5 public figures were prepared to "overcome the
standstill" that had occurred as a result of the position held by the German
Railways and offered to meet with Helmut Mehdorn at the industry's head
quarters, or at another place in Germany. As stated in the letter, the
members of the delegation were as follows: Ms Edith Erbrich (as a child she
was deported with the state railway to Theresienstadt), Mr Serge Klarsfeld
(lawyer and historian, President of the organisation "Fils et Filles des
Déportés Juifs de France"), Mr Stefan Körzell (president of the German
Confederation of Trade Unions (DGB) for the districts Hessen and Thüringen,
through which states the death trains passed to arrive at Auschwitz), Mr
Stephan J.Cramer (General Secretary of the Central Council of Jews in
Germany) and lastly, Mr Arno Lustiger (guest professor of the
"Fritz-Bauer-Institut" and co-founder of the Jewish community in Frankfurt am
Main). On 27 July, the railway industry answered by saying they saw "no
possibility of confidential co-operation". The delegation's refusal, passed
on directly to Mehdorn, was given to a press officer to deal with.
Consternation
"We are filled with consternation that an offer for a meeting on the subject
of the commemoration of the murdered children can be rejected in such a curt
manner", says the initiative on request of the editor. Click here
for excerpts of the correspondence between those in the initiative and the
Chairman of the German Railway published by german-foreign-policy.com.