Today Germany, and hopefully the world, remembers 'Kristallnacht'. 70 years ago (that freaks me out just realizing how historically 'recent' that is) Nazi-inspired riots occurred throughout Germany. In one night over 90 Jewish people were killed, untold numbers beaten and over 1,000 synagogues burned (often when I visit a town in Germany there will be a 'bare' piece of land or a plaque on a building saying 'here used to stand the Jewish synagogue, but was burned down on 9 November 1938')! During this Kristallnacht 30,000 Jewish men and boys were 'detained' and afterwards sent to concentration camps. For many people this is where the Holocaust 'began'...
I took these photos back in the summer and felt that now was appropriate to share them.
This is what I usually see of Grunewald (Green Wood/Green Forest) train station on my way to Potsdam to study. Nothing crazy/out of the ordinary.
Once, however, when I was walking through Berlin in an area that used to be a 'Jewish Quarter' of sorts, I read that many of Berlin's Jews were transported from Grunewald train station to concentration camps. I had heard that there was somekind of memorial, but had never seen it. One day I decided to get off the train and go see what was there....
Apparently the train station used to be MUCH bigger and had a lot more rail platforms - a few are now blocked off...
I followed a sign that said 'Platform 17' - it is a memorial and this is what it looks like.
All of those 'rusty' iron pieces on the ground is one transport that left Grunewald from 1941 to 1945 taking another part of Berlin's Jewish population to the concentration camps. In total over 50,000 of Berlin's Jews were sent from this train station.
I must say it is 'freaky' how 'systematic' it seemed to funtion...there were times (maybe 1943-44) when each day in a week over 1,000 Jews were sent to Theresienstadt/Auschwitz or other concentration camps.
Here are some of the rails, grown over by trees, etc....
Here is a little plaque of remembrance. Whenever I visit Jewish graveyards in Europe there are always rocks on top of the gravemarkers. I don't know if that is the Jewish way of remembering the dead or paying their respects, but it's clearly being done here...
This is a modern artistic part of the memorial - they are....as if a body had been in there, but then was taken out and the imprint is left....the significance now is just hitting me....
People left flowers on specific transport dates - we can guess as to why.....
One bouquet was on a transport with over 1,000 Jews sent to Auschwitz.
This is another...how to describe it? ....'psycho'/insane element to the whole thing...the Nazis were literally trying to exterminate the Jews until the VERY END...this is a transport on 27 March 1945! 18 Jews were sent to the concentration camp of Theresienstadt in today's Czech Republic. ....The Soviet Army was literally at Berlin's 'door step' just prior to this and the SS, etc. were still trying to kill as many Jews as they could!
I specifically want to end with this picture. This is the entrance to the Grunewald Train Station. Cute, eh? And this is the point....maybe because I see how 'frail' and 'faulty' we as human beings are and how fast things can change, but I just always see everything that we have as very 'shaky', i.e. we just assume that we'll always live in democracies; we just assume that our neighbors won't try to kill us; we assume that something like the Holocaust would never happen again; and yet the truth is, ethnic cleaning, etc. continue to occur as you're reading this! The Jews of Berlin...just 20 years before Hitler came to power lived, worked and lived as families in Berlin. They served in the government; they were soldiers in WWI - and then suddenly everything changed!
Anyway, I am not here to judge - I have no idea if, when confronted with 20 Nazi young men beating a Jewish woman in public, what I would have done, HOWEVER I do know and can see THE GUILT that follows the people who did nothing! That for me....would be worse than dying and I hope that when confronted with such situations in the future, I don't turn 'a blind eye'.
I hope that we all remember 'Kristallnacht', not just because of what it initiated in the past, but also as a method of avoiding such things in the future.
I also hope that all of those families, fathers, mothers and children who felt the fear of not knowing where they were going/or KNOWING where they were going, have the peace that they deserve....
