Railway Puts Its Holocaust Shame on Display
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
BERLIN — Germany’s state railway yesterday caved in to pressure to document its role in deporting Jews to Nazi concentration camps, opening an exhibition on the “death trains” in a central Berlin station.
The display follows a two-year campaign by Jewish groups, led by the Nazi-hunters Serge and Beate Klarsfeld, to force Deutsche Bahn to examine its key part in the Holocaust, as Germany continues to wrestle with its wartime record. Deutsche Bahn’s Nazi-era predecessor, the Reichsbahn, was paid for each child it transported to the camps. But until now Hartmut Mehdorn, Deutsche Bahn’s chief executive, has resisted staging any commemorative exhibition in German stations. He insisted that it was not suitable to confront busy commuters with details of the deportations.
“The negotiations were tense. We fought for two years to get here,” After pressure from the German government, including Transport Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee, Mr. Mehdorn grudgingly relented. “No company should whitewash its past,” he said.
