Break the Boycott
BERLIN/KARLSRUHE/JENA/PARIS (Own report) - German initiative groups decided at an action conference, to hold commemoration ceremonies for the victims of deportation of the Deutsche Reichsbahn (German railroad). In all, three million people, from nearly all states of Europe had been taken by rail to concentration and extermination camps, during the Nazi German rule. Among these were also eleven thousand Jewish children from France. The German Railroad Corp. (Deutsche Bahn AG), the successor of the German Reichsbahn, refuses, up to the present, to permit memorial exhibitions on the premises of the railroad stations along the earlier death transport routes. This enterprise, worth billions, claims it lacks the financial means. The participants at the action conference, that was held in Frankfurt, are calling for nationwide events on and around November 9 (Reichspogromnacht). The initiators say, that the passengers will not only be given comprehensive information, at the junctions of the earlier death transports, but also along the deportation route, itself. Also targeted are transnational routes. german-foreign-policy.com publishes the names and German places of origin of the deported children.
Actions, in honor of the abducted victims of the Reichsbahn, have been announced by initiatives in the regions of Hamburg, Cologne, Frankfurt/Main, Mannheim, Karlsruhe, Weimar and Leipzig. Demonstrations and rallies are to take place on and around November 9 and will commemorate the first mass deportations over the German railway system in 1938. At that time, the plundering of Jewish property was followed by arrests and detention of hundreds of Germans, who fell prey to the ethnic order established by the government in Berlin or were politically unpopular. They were brought to concentration camps by the Reichsbahn.
In Cattle Cars
The German Reichsbahn could fall back on the experience gleaned through the November 1938 deportations, when, a few years later, it became the largest logistician for Nazi mass crimes. Exemplarily and characteristic for the unscrupulousness of the German policy, is the deportation by rail of Jewish children from France. The journey to their deaths, took them over the central German rail network. For the transport to their death, the German Reichsbahn was paid the fare for persons.[1] Among the approx. eleven thousand deportees, were more than 600 children of German and Austrian emigrants. En route to the extermination camps, many of them drove through the train stations of their hometowns - in cattle cars.
Alliances
Deportation protocols, reconstructed by the French historian, Serge Klarsfeld, a task of several years, permit an exact identification of the victims. The initiative groups are keeping name lists ready, that show the German origin of the abducted children. Alongside large urban centers (Berlin, Frankfurt, Leipzig among others) also medium-sized cities and small towns: Bonn, Darmstadt, Duisburg, Hachenburg, Plauen, Rust, Tiengen or Worms, are being named, as starting points for the odyssey of death. In all of these places and elsewhere, the initiative groups are calling for the establishment of local alliances, so that on or around November 9, passengers can be reminded of the fate, known by name, of those who had been abducted.
Rededication
The initiatives, already active, have announced that they will use various forms of action in accordance with their respective possibilities. Thus some will make guided tours to expose the deportation logistics of the former German Reichsbahn, whose facilities are still in existence in today's, German Railroad Corp. Other initiatives want to inform passengers through film presentations, still others plan the rededication of today's railroad designations, in honor of deportation victims. Since the death trains operated transnationally, the honors will also include neighboring regions, announced the Eleven Thousand Children Initiative. The alliances, planning to commemorate those killed, for the first time this year, are being asked to do information work with photos of the children or art installations, on the premises of their respective stations around November 9.
Exhibitions
These exhibitions, that the German Railway Corp. has refused to allow in the passenger stations, are, in the meantime, being invited by municipal institutions throughout the Republic - to be shown in reduced and customized versions using their own resources. Along with Leipzig [2] organizers in Potsdam, Pforzheim, Eutin and Delmenhorst have inquired about the possibility of borrowing the exhibits for their presentation. The exhibition articles consist mainly of photos and the last letters of the children, who had thrown them onto the German Reichsbahn tracks. Because of the high costs of the actualization of the contents and the transport of the exhibition, an extension of the nationwide circuit is, at present, impossible. The initiatives are hoping that the reduced version of the exhibition will be an auxiliary to the main station exhibition, and be presented there, where the main exhibition cannot be shown.
Prepared
Whether or not a consensual agreement with the German Railway Corp. can be reached allowing the commemoration of the eleven thousand children and all other deportees, is still unsure.[3] All efforts aimed at reaching such an accord with the Minister of Transport, have, so far, remained unsuccessful. "We are prepared to break the commemoration boycott and honor the children in November", was the answer given by the nationwide initiatives to german-foreign-policy.com.
Please read also Auswahl der Namen und deutschen Herkunftsorte and Elftausend Kinder.
[1] see also Dritter Klasse and Konzernspitze der Bahn AG: Unversöhnlich
[2] see also Einstimmig angenommen and Interview mit Dr. Georg Girardet
[3] see also Notfalls erzwingen