History Project “Anhalter Bahnhof. Track 1”

Our Initiative

The history project „Anhalter Bahnhof. Track 1. The place where we live.“ is a working group of the Möckernkiez Association. The group consists of committed residents of the housing cooperative Möckernkiez in Berlin’s neighbourhood of Kreuzberg. For several years now, we have been pursuing the goal of commemorating the history of the former Anhalter Bahnhof railroad station. This is the very station from which elder Jews from Berlin were transported to the Theresienstadt ghetto during the Nazi regime in the so-called „transports of the elderly“. These people were either killed in Theresienstadt or murdered in other extermination camps in Eastern Europe.

The Mission

Our working group has the goal of creating a „place of remembrance“ in the Möckernkiez. The group’s name, therefore, states a direct reference to the „place where we live“. The concept of our memorial is intended to attract the attention of visitors, especially those unfamiliar with Nazi Germany’s crimes committed in this area. We want to encourage to reflect, to be informed about the historical context and to motivate to participate interactively. In doing so, we join Berlin’s historical responsibility against anti-Semitic crimes. With our work, we also try to show historically significant traces of the Nazi regime still existing in our own neighbourhood. Our civic initiative sees itself as an open working platform and encourages participation from anyone who is interested in joining. Our goal is to fill our memorial with life and energy as a place of remembrance. The memorial is an addition to the information board on the portico of the former Anhalter Bahnhof for the „transports of the elderly“. Moreover, our place of remembrance is part of the memorial mile that already exists or is yet to be created on the edge of the Gleisdreieck park. Partners in this effort are the Museum of Flight/Expulsion/Reconciliation, the German Technology Museum, the planned Exile Museum, the „Storywalk“ of the Campus Stadt Natur, the Yorckbrücken History Trail and the bronze-covered stumbling stones for Nazi victims in the vicinity of our housing cooperative.

The Place of Remembrance

At the centre of the memorial on the edge of the Yorckplatz is a „Weichenbock“ – an authentic track switch from 1927 which guided trains from one track to another during the Nazi era. From 1942 to 1945, 116 trains were diverted to the Theresienstadt ghetto with the help of this track switch. While the rest of the train passengers were on their way to vacation or work, the journey for almost 10,000 Jews in the 3rd class carriages added to the train ended in the ghetto – and ultimately in death. A memorial plaque lists information about the significance of the track switch. Moreover, our place of remembrance is part of the memorial mile that already exists or is yet to be created on the edge of the Gleisdreieck park. Partners in this effort are the Museum of Flight/Expulsion/Reconciliation, the German Technology Museum, the planned Exile Museum, the „Storywalk“ of the Campus Stadt Natur, the Yorckbruecken History Trail and the bronze-covered stumbling stones for Nazi victims in the vicinity of our housing cooperative.

The Historical Context

In 1933, the National Socialist regime began to marginalize, discriminate against, persecute and finally expel the Jewish population from German society. Those who could not or did not want to leave Germany in time were eventually deported. From 23 October 1941 until the end of the Third Reich, Jews were prohibited by law from leaving Germany. To make the German Reich „free of Jews“, the Nazi regime began deportations of Jews throughout the Reich in the fall of 1941. These deportations were declared as „resettlements“ to the „eastern territories“. Thus, between 1941 and 1945, 50,000 Jews were deported from Berlin to ghettos in German-occupied Central and Eastern Europe and – with very few exceptions – murdered. The first deportation train left „Track 17“ of the Grunewald station on 18 October 1941. To prepare the transports, the Berlin Secret State Police (“Gestapo”) set up 15 assembly camps. These were in several parts of the city, existed for different lengths of time and at different times. Jewish retirement homes whose residents had already been deported were often used for this purpose. On the day of the deportation, the Jews ordered to leave were woken up between 2 and 3 o’clock in the morning and given a simple breakfast prepared by members of the Jewish community. At about 4 a.m., they left the assembly camp, a building in the Grosse Hamburger Strasse. They had to walk a few hundred meters to Monbijouplatz, where a tram car of the Berlin transport company was waiting for them. At around 5:15 a.m., they arrived at the Anhalter Bahnhof station. They were taken to platform 1 through a side entrance and had to board third-class carriages. These had been ordered from the Reichsbahn railroad company. The deportees had to pay for the tickets themselves. The wagons were attached to a scheduled passenger train and departed at 6:07 a.m. in the direction of Dresden. The train stopped there for a few hours. Then the wagons were attached to another scheduled train to Prague. The route led along the river Elbe to Bohusovice. The inmates had to get off at Bohusovice station, where they were met by SS personnel and Czech police. They were then forced to march for 3 kilometers to Theresienstadt with their luggage. Deportees who were unable to walk were driven to the ghetto in lorries. Many of the older German Jews had signed so-called home purchase contracts and had given considerable amounts, sometimes their entire assets, to the German state to get a place in one of the „old people’s homes and nursing homes“. They had agreed to this contract to avoid transports to the concentration camps in Eastern Europe. Only upon arriving in Theresienstadt did they realize that they had been deceived. The total number of men, women and children deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto was about 140,000 by the end of the Second World War. During the last days of the war, another 13,000 prisoners arrived, who had been deported to Theresienstadt from abandoned concentration camps in Germany and Poland. Most of the internees came from Bohemia and Moravia (about 74,000 people) and the German Reich (about 43,000). A quarter of the prisoners of the Theresienstadt ghetto (about 33,000) died there, mainly because of the appalling living conditions. About 88,000 prisoners were deported to extermination camps and murdered there.

Future events in planning

• 27 March 2025 Commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the last „transport of the elderly“ from Anhalter Bahnhof to Theresienstadt with a display of authentic drawings from Theresienstadt
• Autumn 2024/Spring 2025 Study tours to the Czech Republic (Prague/Theresienstadt/Lidice) and Poland (Krakow/Auschwitz)

gefördert durch den Berliner Senat