Exberliner Issue 167, January 2018

TRAINS
“The gates of Auschwitz
with the train tracks going
in became a symbol of
the Holocaust, and this is
where the tracks began.”
in front of the main entrance to
the station in 1987; it still stands
today. In 1991, an artwork by
Polish artist Karol Broniatowski
was installed along the freight
ramp up to the platform. It is a
large concrete wall with rough
human shapes forced deep into
its face as though they were
headed toward the platform,
hollow and shadowed.
But it wasn’t until 1996 that Germany decided to turn
Gleis 17 into a permanent memorial, as a way for the
post-reunification Deutsche Bahn to acknowledge
the collaboration of their predecessors, the Deutsche
Reichsbahn, with the National Socialists. Together with
Berlin’s Central Council of Jews, Deutsche Bahn CEO
Heinz Dürr launched a design competition that was won
by architects Hirsch, Lorch and Wandel. Their memorial
was inaugurated on January 27, 1998, with the addition
in 2011 of birch trees from around the area of Auschwitz-
Birkenau, replanted by Polish artist Lukasz Surowiec.
Unlike its younger, louder, attention-seeking cousin
near the Brandenburg Gate, this Holocaust memorial
has never called for any fanfare. “It’s been accepted
very well and treated with the respect it deserves,” says
Susanne Kill of Deutsche Bahn’s Historical Department.
“Unlike the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe,
it has the big advantage that of course there’s no doubt
those trains started there. It’s a historical site.”
And it’s exactly that which sets it apart from Peter
Eisenman’s work. This isn’t just something created and
put somewhere it would fit. “I’ve had people cry when
they suddenly realise they are looking at the very rails that
carried these people to their deaths,” says Dunkley. The
62-year-old self-dubbed “Scotsman, former soldier and
diplomat” wants to turn the low building at the side of the
platform, where some 50,000 Jews were herded like cattle
and checked off transport lists, into a visitor’s centre.
Yet despite its historical importance and emotional
impact, Gleis 17 is relatively unknown. “I’d say the majority
of tourists don’t know about it. It’s a bit off-track and
there’s so much about the Holocaust in the city centre.
As for Berlin residents, many can probably link Gleis 17
to the deportations, but I doubt many have visited it,”
says Friederike Pescheck of the Permanent Conference
for Directors of National Socialist Memorial Sites in the
Berlin Area, who co-organises the annual commemorative
ceremony at Gleis 17 on October 18.
“To me, its level of visibility is okay, because of
its nature,” Kill reflects. “It’s symbolic, a thoughtful
place. The gates of Auschwitz with the train tracks
going in became a symbol of the Holocaust, and this
is where the tracks began.” n
JANUARY 2018
25