Sunday 7 February 2016

Jewish Life Berlin: Westhafen Memorial

I was in a big hurry and a bit nervous as I was in a completely new and not friendly looking part of Berlin when I stumbled upon a spectacular monument near the Westhafen S-Bahn train station. A singular presence on the bridge, in the middle of almost nowhere, with unhappy people crossing the bridge. 
I made a short stop, looked around in order to be sure that there are not unusual - yes, this is the word that I wanted to use - people around, get the camera out of the pocket and made 2 short pictures and run away.
As I had found later, this memorial was inaugurated in 1987, for remembering the 30,000 Berlin Jews deported from the nearby Moabit freight depot. After Grünewald, Moabit was the second station for the 180 transports of Jews to death from the German capital city to the camps spread all over the country and the occupied territories. The memorial is located on the Putlitzbrücke that connects Moabit with Wedding. Volkman Haase was a famous sculptor, with many public works sharing a special strength, but this seems to be his only Shoah-related work.
The German railways - then Reichsbahn, today Deutsche Bahn - in the Shoah was concealed long time after the war was over and its atrocities made public. 

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