An exhibit about the deportation of Jews and Gypsies to death camps during the Third Reich opened in Berlin.
The exhibit at the Potsdamer Platz train station, called “Special Trains to Death,” documents the deportation of millions of victims from all countries occupied by Germany.
The exhibit, which opened Wednesday to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day, confronts the industrialized method of mass murder in which the railway played an essential role. Some documents show that transports of Jews and other minorities began in 1938, well before the establishment of extermination camps, according to railway historian Alfred Gottwaldt of the German Technical Museum. German Railway chief Hartmut Mehdorn opened the way for the exhibit last year, after at first protesting that train stations were “not place for such a serious theme.” The new exhibit is partly inspired by the work of French scholar and Nazi hunter Beate Klarsfeld, who had created an exhibit about the deportation of French children, which was shown in French train stations.
The exhibit is to remain in Berlin until Feb. 11 and then travel to stations in other cities in Germany.
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