Appeal to European Public Opinion
A call to protest against the Deutsche Bahn AG/"Exorbitant Financial Demands"/Company "enriches itself indirectly from the fate of the deportees"
Berlin - Citizens' initiatives in support of the "Train of Commemoration" are now turning to European public opinion, because a "virtual boycott" is obstructing the commemoration of the children and youth, who were deported during the Nazi period. They are calling for protests against the "Deutsche Bahn AG" and the German Ministry of Transportation in Berlin.
Since last November, the citizens initiatives' "Train of Commemoration" - carrying a mobile exhibit of biographies of the missing children from many European nations - has been following the same routes taken by the German deportation trains. Hundreds of thousands were carried over the German rail network to death-camps. The mass-transport was organized by the "Deutsche Reichsbahn." Only few of the deported survived.
More than 40,000 people have already visited the train in German stations, to inform themselves of these Nazi crimes. Some laid flowers for the children from Norway, the Netherlands, Poland or Italy in the narrow exhibition cars. Tens-of-thousands more are awaiting the arrival of the train in nearly all of the German federal states and are preparing local commemorations for the missing children from their hometowns, from France, Belgium or from Greece.
But, according to the appeal, the "Deutsche Bahn AG," Europe's largest rail logistician, is obstructing the commemorations through demands for several tens-of-thousands of Euros. The railroad company's board of directors has refused to accord demands for a waiver of these costs. Even the Ministry of Transport in Berlin has categorically refused to support the "Train of Commemoration," even though the mass-deportation of European children and youth was commissioned by its predecessor (the Reich's Ministry of Transportation).
For the past few weeks, parliamentarians from various parties and numerous German media organs have been protesting against the attempts to halt the "Train of Commemoration" through financial requirements. "It's a shame that the Bahn AG is obstructing this project with its behavior. After all, these deportations were organized by former train managers," said the federal parliamentarian, Ulla Burchhardt of the SPD. Winfried Hermann, who is in the Transportation Committee of the German Parliament for the Greens, calls the behavior of the Bahn management "unbearable." Even the Prime Minister of the federal state of Saarland, Peter Mueller (CDU) criticized the Bahn management. The journal, "Saarbruecker Zeitung" considers the methods of the Bahn AG to be "unscrupulous: to indirectly enrich itself from the fate of the deportees of the German Reichsbahn. A shabby behavior that could not be more humiliating for the survivors."
These interventions have as yet remained without effect.
Because of these obstructions, the initiators of the "Train of Commemoration" are now calling for protests. A complete withdrawal of financial demands is being demanded from the Bahn AG. According to the appeal, the Ministry of Transportation, "is part and parcel of the villainous state heritage" and therefore must "make a decisive contribution" to the "Train of Commemoration." The initiators of the commemoration (www.zug-der-erinnerung.eu) ask that protests from other European nations be addressed to German diplomatic missions.
Berlin - Citizens' initiatives in support of the "Train of Commemoration" are now turning to European public opinion, because a "virtual boycott" is obstructing the commemoration of the children and youth, who were deported during the Nazi period. They are calling for protests against the "Deutsche Bahn AG" and the German Ministry of Transportation in Berlin.
Since last November, the citizens initiatives' "Train of Commemoration" - carrying a mobile exhibit of biographies of the missing children from many European nations - has been following the same routes taken by the German deportation trains. Hundreds of thousands were carried over the German rail network to death-camps. The mass-transport was organized by the "Deutsche Reichsbahn." Only few of the deported survived.
More than 40,000 people have already visited the train in German stations, to inform themselves of these Nazi crimes. Some laid flowers for the children from Norway, the Netherlands, Poland or Italy in the narrow exhibition cars. Tens-of-thousands more are awaiting the arrival of the train in nearly all of the German federal states and are preparing local commemorations for the missing children from their hometowns, from France, Belgium or from Greece.
But, according to the appeal, the "Deutsche Bahn AG," Europe's largest rail logistician, is obstructing the commemorations through demands for several tens-of-thousands of Euros. The railroad company's board of directors has refused to accord demands for a waiver of these costs. Even the Ministry of Transport in Berlin has categorically refused to support the "Train of Commemoration," even though the mass-deportation of European children and youth was commissioned by its predecessor (the Reich's Ministry of Transportation).
For the past few weeks, parliamentarians from various parties and numerous German media organs have been protesting against the attempts to halt the "Train of Commemoration" through financial requirements. "It's a shame that the Bahn AG is obstructing this project with its behavior. After all, these deportations were organized by former train managers," said the federal parliamentarian, Ulla Burchhardt of the SPD. Winfried Hermann, who is in the Transportation Committee of the German Parliament for the Greens, calls the behavior of the Bahn management "unbearable." Even the Prime Minister of the federal state of Saarland, Peter Mueller (CDU) criticized the Bahn management. The journal, "Saarbruecker Zeitung" considers the methods of the Bahn AG to be "unscrupulous: to indirectly enrich itself from the fate of the deportees of the German Reichsbahn. A shabby behavior that could not be more humiliating for the survivors."
These interventions have as yet remained without effect.
Because of these obstructions, the initiators of the "Train of Commemoration" are now calling for protests. A complete withdrawal of financial demands is being demanded from the Bahn AG. According to the appeal, the Ministry of Transportation, "is part and parcel of the villainous state heritage" and therefore must "make a decisive contribution" to the "Train of Commemoration." The initiators of the commemoration (www.zug-der-erinnerung.eu) ask that protests from other European nations be addressed to German diplomatic missions.
