User:AmWoll/Deportation of Jews from Germany

The systematic deportation of Jews from Germany to the East began in mid-October 1941, months before the day of the Wannsee Conference on 20 January 1942. Sources indicate that Adolf Hitler may have made this decision roughly around 17 September 1941. Most Jews deported from Nazi Germany would not be murdered immediately at the destinations they were deported to. Although some transportations terminated in the Sobibor or Maly Trostinez death camps, most deportees were initially held in ghettos or labour camps under adverse living conditions. Many died in these camps and ghettos, and others would later be transported and eventually murdered in death camps. By the end of 1942, holocaust trains departed directly to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Two state authorities in particular (along with their subordinate departments) played a key role in the deportations to the eastern ghettos, concentration camps, and death camps as part of the "Final Solution", these being Abteilung IV B 4 of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) and the Deutsche Reichsbahn, which had been incorporated into the National Ministry of Transport since 1937 and was responsible for the transport of passengers and goods throughout Europe during its occupation by the Nazis. The deportation and mass murder of millions was only possible through the close cooperation of these two state authorities. Without the rail network, supply of trains, and the ruthless efficiency of the Reichsbahn's large workforce, the transportations to the death camps and the murder of millions of European Jews, Sinti and Roma people, among other victims, would not have been possible. The combined "effort" of customs officials, bailiffs, administrative officials, timetable planners, the police force (who served as train guards), as well as many others who worked alongside Gestapo officials was instrumental in facilitating the smooth deportation of Jews from Germany.

The Reichsbahn initially used many old 19th century third class passenger carriages for deportations out of the German Reich. These coaches were green in colour during this time.

In official letters and directives written in German, the term Deportation was typically paraphrased into more benign and technical descriptions, with Jews being "relocated", "moved out", "resettled", "evacuated", "encouraged to emigrate", or "re-homed to Theresienstadt" while the Reich was being "emptied and liberated of Jews."

Early deportations

Deportation of Polish Jews from Nuremberg on 28 October 1938. Image from the German federal archives

The earliest deportations from Nazi Germany targeted Jews of Polish nationality. On 28 and 29 October 1938, during the so-called Polenaktion, (in English, Poland action) around 17,000 Jews were brought to the Polish border aboard 30 chartered trains and deported across the border. This initial mass deportation by the Nazis, achieved through the cooperation of the police, the Reichsbahn, and the financial and diplomatic authorities, can be considered a model of the later deportations of Jews. The Sicherheitsdienst (SD) drew on the logistical support of the Reichsbahn when it had over 26,000 Jews sent to concentration camps shortly after Kristallnacht in 1938.

In a project headed by Adolf Eichmann's "Central Agency for Jewish Emigration" in October 1939, around 4,000 Jews from Vienna, Moravian Ostrava and Katowice were deported to Nisko. The project, which aimed to deport some 65,000 Jews, was ceased by just the end of October and was suspended "until further notice" by Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler in December 1939. Himmler, while serving as the "Reich Commissioner for the consolidation of German Nationhood", believed instead that the annexed Polish territories would be of more use for the settlement of ethnic Germans.

In order to secure living space for "Baltic German repatriates", around 1,000 Jews from the Pomeranian Gau – mainly from  Szczecin – were deported to Lublin in February 1940. On the evening of 12 February, each Jewish residence was visited by two SA men who supervised deportees as they packed their belongings, before extinguishing their stoves and sealing the doors to their homes behind them. The exact procedure was detailed in a comprehensive leaflet. It is disputed whether the Chief President of Pomerania carried out this forced eviction with the local police force independently, or whether the Reichssicherheitshauptamt had been informed of the action beforehand, contrary to the claims it made to the Reich Association of Jews in Germany.

More than 6,000 Jews from Baden and the Saar Palatinate were deported to Gurs internment camp in France from 21 and 22 October 1940 during the 1940 deportation of Jews from south-west Germany – named the Wagner-Bürckel-Action after the NS- Gauleiters responsible for the action. The Nazis demanded that France "take in" the jewish populations of the departements (administrative zones) that were under German occupation. As such, over 23,000 French Jews and other undesirables had been deported from Nazi occupied territories by mid-September 1940. The Jews from Baden and the Saar Palatinate were "sent over" by the Gauleiters. Adolf Eichmann was present to escort the trains across the inner French demarcation line in person. According to historian Peter Steinbach, the deportation of Jews from south-west Germany acted as a model for the later deportations from the whole of Germany to follow; the "Jewish campaign in Baden and the Palatinate" had been prepared long in advance and had provided Nazi Germany the "blueprints" for the Final Solution.

In February and March 1941, "in light of the unique circumstances" of the times, most notably, the pressing housing shortage in Vienna, around 5,000 Jews from Vienna were deported to a German occupied zone of Poland in five transportations. Only 70 survived by the end of the war.

The Gauleiters would often capitalise on such opportunities to remove Jews from their territory. The full scale systematic deportation of Jews, however, did not begin until later. Heinrich Müller and Adolf Eichmann had by now gained the necessary logistical and organisational experience necessary to implement the eventual mass deportations. The organisational procedures were refined and put to writing in leaflets; ministries drew up ordinances on the Reich Citizenship Act which revoked the citizen status of deportees so that their assets could be confiscated without complication.

Mass deportations out of the German Reich

Deportation trains carrying over 700 persons by date - Not listed here are approximately 400 smaller transportation between May 1942 and April 1945.

Upon the implementation of the 18 October 1941 ordinance, through which Heinrich Himmler sought to prohibit the emigration of any Jews from Germany from 23 October, more than 265,000 Jews had left the "old Reich" - though the Reich Association of Jews claimed the figure was 352,686. At the end of October 1941, 150,925 persons defined as Jews were still living in the "Old Reich", among them a disproportionately large number of women and old people. There is evidence that 131,154 of these German Jews were deported. In addition, almost 22,000 Jews who had previously fled to neighbouring countries were later detained and deported.

The systematic mass deportations of German Jews to the East began on 15 October 1941. In September 1942, there were only 75,816 Jews remaining in the "Old Reich". The mass deportations concluded with the "Fabrikaktion" in March 1943. Around 15,000 Jews were initially spared deportation as they were in mixed marriages or had otherwise gone into hiding.

Departmental responsibilities

Following the implementation of the Gesetz zur Neuregelung der Verhältnisse der Reichsbank und der Deutschen Reichsbahn (In English, Reorganisation of Reichsbank and Reichsbahn Relationships Act) on 10 February 1937, the Deutschen Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft (DRG) (In English, National German rail corporation) was renamed to "Deutsche Reichsbahn" (DR), which thereafter became organised under the Reich Ministry of Transport (Reichsverkehrministerium). This placed rail transport directly under the sovereignty of the Reich.

After the invasion of Poland in 1939, the annexed portions of Poland were assigned to Germany's Oppeln and Breslau railway divisions, as well as the newly founded Danzig and Posen divisions; the "Generaldirektion der Ostbahn" – or "Gedob" (In English, General Directorate of Eastern Railways) was responsible for operating rail transport in the German occupied territories of Poland. The Reich Ministry of Transport assumed control of the organisation of rail transport in the occupied territories within the Soviet Union (General Directorate East, based in Warsaw) from January 1942. Within the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA), Adolf Eichmann's department IV B 4 was involved in procuring trains, while Department 21 was responsible for "mass transportation", and Department 211 for "charter trains".

Eichmann's department often requested chartered trains six weeks in advance, which the Reichsbahn typically delivered as requested. Fewer deportation transports were available in December 1941 and 1942, with almost all of the Reichsbahn's transport capacity being used to transport the Wehrmacht home for the Christmas holiday. A general transport block called for by the Wehrmacht in preparation for the summer offensive in 1942 slowed the pace of the deportations, but they still continued nonetheless.

On 26 July 1941, Abteilung E I, the department responsible for mass deportations and tariffs within the Reichsverkehrsministerium, issued a special tariff, under minister of state Paul Treibe, for mass transportations of "Jews and foreign nationals for resettlement outside of the German Reich". Following this, the "half price third class travel fare" was to be increased by two Reichspfennig per Kilometer. This fare was to apply to transit beyond Reich borders as well and was later charged for passenger and goods trains alike. At best, these fares covered the expense of running the trains, and the Reichsbahn did not make any significant profit from them.

The Reichsbahn and its means of transport

The Reichsbahn often used passenger trains in the first wave of deportations of German, Austrian and Czech Jews to Łódź, Minsk, Kovno, Riga and Lublin in 1941-42. Passenger trains were also used for the mass deportations to the Theresienstadt "elderly ghetto", beginning in June 1942, where 20 older third class passenger carriages, along with a few covered goods carriages for luggage and a second class passenger carriage for the accompanying military escort, were requisitioned for the transportation of around one thousand persons. Following this, transportations to the Theresienstadt concentration camp were smaller in scale though more frequent, with the Reichsbahn carrying out several hundred more transportations by coupling one or two passenger carriages to trains heading to Dresden and Prague on the regular timetable.

While an average of 3,750 Jewish victims were transported as passengers aboard goods trains in the East, covered goods carriages were only used within the German Reich in a few exceptional cases at first, where large numbers of sick or non-ambulatory people had to be deported lying down. According to historian Alfred Gottwaldt, the use of passenger carriages was due to a shortage of goods carriages; however, he also suspected this to be the result of foul play.

The need for supplies and priority granted to military transports led to transport restrictions, though these only caused minor delays in the deportation process. In April 1942, "empty" trains being used to transport eastern slave labourers to the Reich (in German, "Russenzüge/Arbeitertransporte") began carrying deportees with them on the return journey. These trains consisted of 20 goods carriages, converted to seat 35 people each. Despite originally only being fit to carry 700 people, 1,000 deportees were to be transported aboard these trains, and so additional goods carriages were to be provided for the accompanying command, which they were expected to make do with.

Goods trains were undeniably used in deportations from Germany on several occasions from the summer of 1942 onwards as well, though exact figures are not available. The "cattle waggons" - a special type of "covered goods carriage" intended for use in military transport, were equipped to carry six horses and, if fitted with enough benches, could seat 48 soldiers. However, when holocaust survivors talk about "cattle wagons" in the context of the deportations, they are likely not referring to this kind of carriage. Rather, the crammed conditions of the carriages that deportees were forced to ride in for days on end led to the image of them being transported like livestock in a "cattle wagon".

The cruising speed for long-distance express passenger trains in 1944 was around 30 miles per hour. The average speed of deportation trains barely reached half this speed, with them constantly being diverted or having to park on side tracks to give way to standard timetable trains and Wehrmacht trains.

Deportation orders

In line with the Gestapo's "directives for the evacuation of Jews", Jews who were forced to leave the country were given a date and sorting centre to present themselves at for "processing". Those who were considered exempt from deportation were, in June 1942 for example, persons over a certain age limit (at times, this was set at over 60, 65, or even up to 68 years old), those working in arms factories, Jews from "mixed marriages", so called "Geltungsjuden", recipients of highly esteemed military honours, as well as Jews of certain nationalities. Furthermore, there were restrictions placed on the amount of cash that could be carried on one's person, and the maximum weight for luggage, which was set at 50 kg. Luggage would be searched and any valuables found would be confiscated. Deportees were instructed to bring a woolen blanket and eight days' rations. Jews selected for deportation had to submit a declaration of assets. Their homes would then be sealed following this.

The Reich Association of Jews in Germany maintained a card based registry which the Gestapo had access to in addition to its own "Judenkartei" Jewish identity card system. Regional branches of the Reich Association also had to set up card registries in accordance with the criteria of the Nuremberg Race Laws. This meant that even the Jewish "central office" in Württemberg, for example, had to draft deportation lists for the Gestapo. Employees of the "Reich Association" had to help with the delivery of deportation orders in their local area; compiling information leaflets on luggage procedures, helping to transport bags and providing food in collection centres.

Collection centres

Jews marked for "evacuation" were required to present themselves at "collection centres" the day before departure, these being Jewish community centres, rented venues, or large halls, some with double bunk beds, others with only deck chairs or straw to lay on. Tax officials collected and checked the eight-page long declarations of assets. According to the 11th Ordinance of the Reich Citizenship Law, which was drafted specifically for the deportations, from the 25 November 1941, any Jew would lose their German citizenship upon "transferring their place of permanent residence to a country outwith the German Reich", and upon crossing the border, their assets would be forfeited to the German state. Shortly thereafter, Auschwitz in the occupied Upper Silesia would also become classified as a "foreign country within the purview of the Eleventh Ordinance". However, in the case of deportations to Theresienstadt, which was a protectorate of the German Reich, this ordinance could not be invoked, as was the case with deportations carried out before the date of its enactment. To maintain the impression of legality, court bailiffs were involved in deportations to Theresienstadt, serving those awaiting deportation in sorting centres formal notices citing the "Law for the Confiscation of Assets Hostile to the Nation State" from 1933. The Reich Minister of the Interior claimed in a decree from June 30 1942, that all Jews targeted for deportation were supposedly harbouring "hostile intentions towards towards the state and the people".

Aside from financial officials, who received instructions from the Reich Ministry of Finance in November 1941 under the code name "Aktion 3", numerous other individuals were involved in the settlement of assets, such as banks, who received copies of transport lists which they used to fully record savings deposits. Valuers, auctioneers and forwarding agents were involved in the liquidation of Jewish properties. Coal merchants received word of the fuel stocks that were left behind in Jewish homes. Landlords who later claimed losses in rent due to their flats being sealed filed their claims with the tax authorities. A regional study citing 39 offices, institutions and individuals who were involved either directly or indirectly in the deportations shows that these entities took to planning and complying with state provisions, drafting accurate expense reports, and ensuring the smooth procedure of operations in much the same way they would have any formal administrative act.

Before departure, deportees were strip searched and subject to thorough luggage checks, during which even stock cubes and post stamps were confiscated. Initially, deportees were permitted to bring 100 Reichsmark with them; this amount soon lowered to 50 Reichsmark which had to be carried as or exchanged into a "Reichskreditkassenschein": a type of banknote of highly limited tender. During the deportations, this promissory note was issued to Jews to limit their access to funds.

Finance for the deportation, and not least the train journey itself, was secured through contributions from those involved. The Kulturvereinigung Württemberg, for example, collected 57.65 Reichsmark from each member. Wealthier members were expected to transfer a donation on behalf of the less privileged to the Reichsvereinigung's "Special Account W", which the RSHA also had access to.

Journey

The slaughterhouse ramp deportation memorial at Wiesbaden railway station

View into a 3rd class cabin

Following the terms of an agreement between the Reichsbahn and the Sicherheitspolizei (English: security police), the Ordnungspolizei (English: general police) escorted transport trains to their destination; the Reichsbahn were reimbursed by the Sicherheitspolizei for any extra costs incurred as a result.

A confidential report by Train conductor Paul Salitter, who, in December 1941, led a deportation train heading from Düsseldorf to Riga with 15 police officers, can be considered as emblematic of the harsh realities aboard holocaust trains. Salitter's train was due to depart from Düsseldorf at 9:30 a.m. on 11 December 1941 with 1,007 Jewish persons on board. As such, the carriages had been "readied for boarding" at the loading ramp as early as 4:00 a.m. A man had committed suicide by throwing himself in front of a tram on his way from the collection centre. A woman who had managed to hide herself away in a dark corner was discovered by a railway employee and publicly reprimanded.

The train arrived late and due to the pressures of time, boarding had been haphazard. Some carriages were only occupied by 35 people, others were overloaded with 60 to 65 people, with children being separated from their parents. Drinking water was distributed poorly. Heating cut out in some carriages. After a 61 hour journey, the train finally arrived outside of Riga at Skirotava at midnight, where it remained for the night, unheated in the -12 degrees celsius air. The following morning, the conductor handed "the 50,000 Reichsmark of Jewish money carried aboard the train" over to the awaiting Gestapo official in Reichskreditkassenschein.

Destinations and dates

Information on the destinations, dates and number of passengers aboard the deportation trains that transported German Jews from the Reich to the East has largely been recovered and disclosed to the public. In most cases, information regarding what became of the deportees, how many survived, and for those who did not, what the circumstances of their deaths were has also been brought to light. Jews who were older, infirm, or of high social standing and those who had earned military honours in the First World War were deported to what was known as the "Theresienstadt elderly ghetto". Before being deported, they were forced to sign fraudulent home purchase contracts, in so doing, surrendering most of their assets. Nonetheless, these Jews still faced inadequate living conditions and were not spared "transfer to Auschwitz".

Research on this topic distinguishes several discreet phases of deportations. From 15 October 1941 to the beginning of November, around 20,000 Jews from the major cities of Vienna, Prague, Frankfurt, Berlin and Hamburg were transported to Łódź by twenty trains. More than 4,200 of these people had died in the ghettos by the end of 1942.

The following seven trains carried 7,000 people from Hamburg, Bremen, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Berlin, Brno and Vienna to Minsk; only five survived by the end of the war. Because the Minsk ghetto was overcrowded, five deportation trains were directed to Kaunas, carrying deportees from Berlin, Munich, Frankfurt, Vienna and Wrocław. These Jews, numbering almost 5,000, were murdered by SS death squads and Lithuanian Nazi sympathisers in the Ninth Fort of Kaunas before the end of November 1941. Many interpret this mass shooting as a case of excessive personal overreach by Friedrich Jeckeln and Karl Jäger.

In 1941, ten more trains were sent to Riga from 27 November until the beginning of a transport restriction on 15 December. The Riga Ghetto was also overcrowded; following the murder of around 27,500 local Jews, it was then declared to be "vacant". On 30 November 1941, a transportation train from Berlin arrived at Riga ahead of schedule; all 1,053 passengers were subsequently shot in the Rumbula forest by order of Jeckeln, who was reprimanded by Himmler for his arbitrary massacre of German Jews. Nine more deportation trains carrying an average of 1,000 Jews left for Riga in January 1942. The RSHA later sent five more transports to Riga between 18 August and 26 October.

Over 45,000 Jews were deported from the German Reich to Warsaw or to transit ghettos on the eastern fringe of the General Government between March and October 1942. In what the perpetrators called a "Jew exchange", local Jews from Lublin were transferred to the Belzec death camp to make room for the incoming "Reich Jews". For the first time in May 1942, and increasingly from mid-June 1942, Jews from Germany also began being deported to death camps, directly or via Theresienstadt. 17 transports between May and September of 1942 went to Minsk or otherwise directly to the nearby Maly Trostinets death camp. Five large deportation trains from Vienna and Berlin left for Auschwitz in 1942.

From June 1942 until April 1945, numerous deportation trains headed to the Theresienstadt "elderly ghetto", though the majority were "coupled trains" with only a few carriages that carried little over a hundred frail elderly Jews. However, deportation trains left Theresienstadt several times during the same period, hauling their human cargo to Treblinka and Auschwitz. The first two of these trains were completely overloaded, having only 21 passenger carriages to carry 2,000 people.

Between 1943 and 1945, deportation trains from the German Reich were only being directed to the Auschwitz death camp and the Theresienstadt concentration camp. The use of entire trains dedicated to deporting Jewish Germans came to and end by the end of March 1943, following the workplace arrests of the Fabrikaktion. 31,897 officially registered Jews were still living within the Reich's borders, including over 18,500 in Berlin. More than 200 transportations still followed afterwards, though they were mostly smaller in scale. These were typically transportations of elderly Jews to the "elderly ghetto" in Theresienstadt. The Reich Transport Ministry was not involved in such transportations, them being carried out via through-coaches which were coupled and uncoupled between standard timetable trains. From July 1942, trains left Berlin several times a month carrying 100 victims from Anhalter Bahnhof to the death camps via Theresienstadt.

In February and March 1945, 2,600 Jewish spouses, who had so far been protected from deportation due to being in "mixed marriages", were nevertheless deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto. This operation, which had been planned to be in effect across the entire Reich, was cancelled during the final stages of the war; almost all of the targeted deportees survived because of the war coming to an end.

Deportation trains in the east

The Belzec death camp completed construction in the Spring of 1942, with the Sobibor and Treblinka death camps being completed in the Summer that year. The Reichsbahn used goods trains to carry out the transportations from concentration camps and ghettos to the death camps. Even long distance deportations in the east - namely deportations from Romania and Hungary - were also carried out almost entirely by goods trains. In at least this respect, the "collective memory" of many Germans aligns with the realities of the deportations, with the iconic images of overcrowded goods carriages leaving little room for interpretation.

Jews being loaded into goods carriages at the Warsaw holding area

Reichsbahn Telegram of 14 July 1942 regarding charges for "Juden-Sonderzüge" (trains specifically carrying Jews) to Auschwitz

Representatives of the Reichsbahn took part in a "conference concerning the evacuation of Jews within the Generalgouverment (the German occupied part of Poland) and the transfer of Jews in Romania to the Generalgouverment" in September 1942. A total of 800,000 Jews were to be deported. The Chief of the Sicherheitspolizei (security police) and the SD (security service) made an urgent request for the following transportations:

• two trains from the Warsaw district to Treblinka per day,
• one train from the Radom district to Treblinka per day,
• one train from the Kraków district to Belzec per day, and
• one train from the Lviv district to Belzec per day.

Following track repairs, three more trains were to run daily to Sobibor and Belzec from November. Only 22 goods carriages were available in total, however. Additional carriages would only be available following the potato harvest.

Even the German and Austrian Jews who had previously been deported to the transit camps ("ghettos") near Lublin were not exempt from these mass murders. The German Jews from four large transportations and several smaller ones to Warsaw were also subject to the extermination campaign. The trains running the 80 km route between Warsaw and the Treblinka death camp had functionally become a "shuttle service".

Post-war trials and addressing the holocaust

The deportations were the first step, and a conditio sine qua non towards the extermination of the German Jews, as the responsible parties hesitated to carry out the mass murders within Germany itself.

Square of the Jewish Deportees of Hamburg: memorial and remembrance plaque

1001 lit candles in the shape of the Star of David at Trammplatz in Hannover in memory of the 1001 deportees on the 70th anniversary of the first deportation.

Only later did the deportations become the focus of German criminal proceedings. In thirteen trials in West Germany and six trials in East Germany, some 60 high-ranking Gestapo officers were brought to answer for their involvement in the deportations in court.

Of the defendants tried in East Germany, ten received long prison sentences. The judges ruled that the deportations were patently unlawful and that the defendants had carried out their actions out of conviction, indifference, or to further their careers. The East German trials began considerably earlier than those in the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), yet there were also deficiencies in prosecution in the GDR, and the heads of many Gestapo offices remained untouched.

In most cases, Western prosecuting authorities were late to begin their investigations, making the prosecution of offences such as false imprisonment and manslaughter impossible due to them having already become time barred. 38 defendants were acquitted in West German courts. Nine defendants were convicted, two received prison sentences of more than six years, and one was sentenced to life imprisonment. Most defendants argued that they had known nothing about the Genocide (see contemporary knowledge of the holocaust), claimed to have just been following orders, or to have not recognised their actions to be unlawful at the time.

Albert Ganzenmüller, the State Secretary of the Reich Ministry of Transport, fled from an internment camp to Argentina in 1945. His denazification process was put on hold; Ganzenmüller returned to Germany in 1955 and worked as a transportation specialist at Hoesch AG in Dortmund until 1968. In 1957, after discovering an incriminating correspondence concerning "Jewish transports", the prosecuting authorities conducted an investigation against him. The investigations were halted several times, but eventually led to charges in 1973, with Ganzenmüller being accused as an accessory to murder. This marked the first trial against a high-ranking Reichsbahn official, 28 years after the end of the war. There was no conviction, however, as the elderly Ganzenmüller had become indefinitely unfit to stand trial.

Those who were involved in the deportations in other roles as administrators or mayors, typically remained unchallenged and evaded punishment.

The French railway company SNCF became involved in carrying out deportations under the Vichy-Government. The company addressed its historical involvement in an exhibition, but refused to pay any reparations. For a long time, Deutsche Bahn was reluctant to hold a similar exhibition or fund any other resolution for addressing its involvement in the deportations. Only after intervention by Federal Minister of Transport, Wolfgang Tiefensee, was the "Sonderzüge in den Tod" touring exhibition opened in Berlin's Potsdamer Platz Station in January 2008 .

The Dutch national rail company Nederlandse Spoorwegen apoligised for its involvement in the deportation of Jews on 25 September 2005.

Memorials

The memorial at Stuttgart North Station is one of the few larger memorials in Germany that are constructed on the railway itself

Detail on the "Platform 17"memorial at Berlin-Grunewald station

Obelisk at Steinbeck station commemorating the five deportations of Jews from Wuppertal

"Sonderzüge in den Tod" is the title of a touring exhibition commemorating the Reichsbahn transports to the Nazi camps. It was displayed in France in 2006 and in around 10 German railway stations in 2008 (the exhibit being modified for its German tour). The exhibition, jointly designed by Deutschen Bahn and Beate and Serge Klarsfeld in collaboration with a community led initiative, incorporates elements from the "Enfants juifs déportés de France" exhibition, which was on display for three years at SNCF stations across France.

"Zug der Erinnerung" (English: Train of Remembrance) is the name of a one-off "rolling exhibition" that traveled Germany's rails in 2007, 2008, and 2009. It served as a reminder of the deportation of hundreds of thousands of children from Germany and the rest of Europe to the concentration and death camps of the Reich using the rail network and the personnel and plant of the Reichsbahn. The exhibit was intended to encourage younger generations to connect with the victims of the Shoa on an emotional level by focusing on a particular group of victims whom they could identify with; children. The train's journey began on 9 November 2007 in Frankfurt - this date referring to the beginning of the Nation-wide persecution of Jews in the German Reich. From there, the train embarked on a 3,000 kilometer (1,864 miles) journey through the cities and train stations that were involved in the SS deportations.

The DB (Deutschebahn) company, legal successor to the DR (Deutschereichsbahn) maintains a permanent exhibition on the role of the Reichsbahn during the Second World War, set up in 2002 in the DB-Museum in Nuremberg.

The Deutsche Technikmuseum in Berlin depicts the fates of 12 Berliners in Locomotive Shed 2 as part of a permanent exhibition titled "Jews deported by the Reichsbahn 1941-1945". The centrepiece of the exhibit is an old freight carriage for the "transport of livestock and items sensitive to moisture". Similar "cattle wagons" are found in other memorials as symbols of the deportations and the Holocaust, though they cannot be considered as authentic relics. Additional memorials include the Freight Wagon Memorial in Hamburg-Winterhude, the Stuttgart north station memorial site, the Platform 17 Memorial at Berlin-Grunewald station and the Duisburg Central Station Deportation Memorial.

The memorial site at the Frankfurt Großmarkthalle (near the European Central Bank) was opened to the public in 2015. A list of the deportation trains that carried persecuted Jewish citizens from Vienna to concentration camps and death camps can be found in the Aspang Station Memorial article (2017).

Related topics

• Deportation von Juden aus Nürnberg
• Deportation von Juden aus Frankreich
• Deportation der Juden aus Ungarn (Absatz in Geschichtsartikel)
• Judenhäuser und -wohnungen waren eine Vorform der Ghettos.
• Der nicht umgesetzte Madagaskarplan von 1940 sah vor, vier Millionen europäische Juden nach Madagaskar zu deportieren.

Dramatisations in film

• Der letzte Zug – ein Film von Artur Brauner, Regie von Joseph Vilsmaier – stellt das Schicksal der letzten jüdischen Berliner dar, die im April 1943 von Gleis 17 des Bahnhofs Berlin-Grunewald in die Auschwitz-Konzentrationslager deportiert werden.
• Spielzeugland (2007) - Kurzfilm, Regie Jochen Alexander Freydank

Bibliography

• Hans Günther Adler: Der verwaltete Mensch: Studien zur Deportation der Juden aus Deutschland. Mohr, Tübingen 1974, ISBN 3-16-835132-6 (umfassende Dokumentation der Bürokratie).
• Hans Günther Adler: Die verheimlichte Wahrheit. Theresienstädter Dokumente. Mohr, Tübingen 1958.
• Jupp Asdonk und andere: „Es waren doch unsere Nachbarn!“ Deportationen in Ostwestfalen-Lippe 1941-1945. Klartext, Essen, 2., überarb. Aufl. 2014, ISBN 978-3-8375-1292-2.
• Christopher Browning: Die Entfesselung der „Endlösung“: Nationalsozialistische Judenpolitik 1939–1942. Propyläen, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-549-07187-6 (Kapitel 'Deportationen aus Deutschland', S. 537–569).
• Andreas Engwert, Susanne Kill: Sonderzüge in den Tod. Die Deportationen mit der Deutschen Reichsbahn. Begleitdokumentation zur Wanderausstellung. Böhlau, Köln 2009, ISBN 978-3-412-20337-5.
• Alfred Gottwaldt, Diana Schulle: Die „Judendeportationen“ aus dem Deutschen Reich, 1941–1945: eine kommentierte Chronologie. Marix, Wiesbaden 2005, ISBN 3-86539-059-5 (Daten der meisten „Judentransporte“ aus dem „Großdeutschen Reich“ werden zusammengestellt und kommentiert.).
• Alfred Gottwaldt, Diana Schulle: „Juden ist die Benutzung von Speisewagen untersagt“: Die antijüdische Politik des Reichsverkehrsministeriums zwischen 1933 und 1945; Forschungsgutachten. Hentrich & Hentrich, Teetz 2007, ISBN 978-3-938485-64-4.
• Alfred B. Gottwaldt: Mahnort Güterbahnhof Moabit. Die Deportation von Juden aus Berlin. Hentrich & Hentrich, Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3-95565-054-4 (= Stiftung Topographie des Terrors, Notizen, Band 8.).
• Raul Hilberg: Sonderzüge nach Auschwitz. Dumjahn, Mainz 1981, ISBN 3-921426-18-9.
• Akim Jah: Die Deportation der Juden aus Berlin. Die nationalsozialistische Vernichtungspolitik und das Sammellager Große Hamburger Straße. be.bra, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-95410-015-6.
• Heiner Lichtenstein: Mit der Reichsbahn in den Tod: Massentransporte in den Holocaust 1941–1945. Bund, Köln 1985, ISBN 3-7663-0809-2 (teils überholt).
• Albrecht Liess: Wege in die Vernichtung: Die Deportation der Juden aus Mainfranken 1941–1943. Begleitband zur Ausstellung des Staatsarchivs Würzburg und des Instituts für Zeitgeschichte München-Berlin. Generaldirektion der Staatlichen Archive Bayerns, München 2003, ISBN 3-921635-77-2 (genaue lokalhistorische Darstellung von drei Deportationen mit Fotos).
• Roland Maier: Die Verfolgung und Deportation der jüdischen Bevölkerung. In: Ingrid Bauz, Sigrid Brüggemann, Roland Maier (Hrsg.): Die Geheime Staatspolizei in Württemberg und Hohenzollern. Stuttgart 2013, ISBN 3-89657-138-9, S. 259–304.
• Beate Meyer (Hrsg.): Die Verfolgung und Ermordung der Hamburger Juden 1933–1945: Geschichte, Zeugnis, Erinnerung. Institut für die Geschichte der deutschen Juden, Hamburg / Landeszentrale für Politische Bildung, Hamburg 2006, ISBN 3-929728-85-0 (Augenzeugenberichte).
• Birthe Kundrus, Beate Meyer (Hrsg.): Die Deportation der Juden aus Deutschland: Pläne – Praxis – Reaktionen 1938–1945. Wallstein, Göttingen 2004, ISBN 3-89244-792-6.
• Kurt Pätzold, Erika Schwarz: „Auschwitz war für mich nur ein Bahnhof“. Franz Novak – der Transportoffizier Adolf Eichmanns. Metropol, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-926893-22-2 (über Franz Novak).
• Christiaan F. Rüter: Ost- und westdeutsche Strafverfahren gegen die Verantwortlichen für die Deportation der Juden. In: Anne Klein, Jürgen Wilhelm (Hrsg.): NS-Unrecht vor Kölner Gerichten nach 1945. Greven, Köln 2003, ISBN 3-7743-0338-X, S. 45–56.
• Herbert Schultheis: Juden in Mainfranken 1933-1945 unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Deportation Würzburger Juden. Bad Neustädter Beiträge zur Geschichte und Heimatkunde Frankens. Band 1. Bad Neustadt a. d. Saale 1980. ISBN 3-9800482-0-9.
• Herbert Schultheis, Isaac E. Wahler (Hrsg.): Bilder und Akten der Gestapo Würzburg über die Judendeportationen 1941-1943. (= Bad Neustädter Beiträge zur Geschichte und Heimatkunde Frankens, Bd. 5). Rötter, Bad Neustadt a. d. Saale 1980, ISBN 3-9800482-7-6.

External Links

• Geheimer Schnellbrief vom 31. Januar 1942 betr. „Evakuierung von Juden“ (PDF; 1,6 MB)
• Deportationsbescheid Hameln 1942
• (wayback archive) US Holocaust MM: Fotos von Deportationszügen at the Wayback Machine (archived 2009-05-07)
• Statistik zur jüdischen Bevölkerung und Deportation
• Bundesarchiv: Chronologie der Deportationen aus dem Deutschen Reich
  • Gedenkbuch – Opfer der Verfolgung der Juden unter der nationalsozialistischen Gewaltherrschaft in Deutschland 1933–1945.
  • Liste der Deportationszüge aus Berlin von 1941 bis 1945. Bezirksamt Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf von Berlin.
• "„Judendeportationen" mit der Deutschen Reichsbahn 1941–1945". Deutsches Technikmuseum Berlin. 2005. Archived from the original on 2016-10-03. Retrieved 2009-11-09."„Judendeportationen" mit der Deutschen Reichsbahn 1941–1945". Deutsches Technikmuseum Berlin. 2005. Archived from the original on 2016-10-03. Retrieved 2009-11-09.
• Website des „Zugs der Erinnerung“
• 1941-1945: Deportationen aus Nordwestdeutschland mit Biografien von Deportierten bei Geschichte.Bewusst.Sein
• Die Deportation der Juden aus Deutschland in den Osten. yadvashem.org

Citations

[[Category:History of rail transport in Germany]] [[Category:The Holocaust in Germany]]