Germany: Holocaust Reminders at the U-Bahn and S-Bahn Stations

Berlin, Germany. Wittenbergplatz U-Bahn station. "Places of Terror We Must Never Forget," 1967. Erected by the League for Human Rights. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2003.

Germany: Holocaust Reminders at the U-Bahn and S-Bahn Stations
by Samuel D. Gruber

After my visit to Berlin in November, I've been posting about some of the less well known Jewish and Holocaust-related monuments and memorials in the city. I've already posted about the Münchener Strasse Synagogue monument, the Jewish cemetery on Grosse Hamburger Strasse and the monument and burial section at the Weissensee Cemetery for Jewish soldiers who died in World War I.

One of the notable aspects about the memorial landscape of Berlin is important role of train stations as sites of commemoration. This is not new to Holocaust memory - there is an impressive memorial to rail workers killed in World War I located within the Nollendorfplatz U-Bahn Station.
 

Berlin, Germany. Nollendorfplatz U-Bahn Station. Memorial to Rail Workers killed in World War I. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2016.

But train terminals and depots, and U-Bahn and S-Bahn stations now host several Holocaust memorial memorials and markers, too. This isn't surprising considering the central role trains played in the deportation of Jews from cities to ghettos, and from ghettos and transfer sites to death camps and execution.  Throughout Europe there are now several important memorial sites associated with train stations and rail links, the inclusion of rail tracks and old boxcars is a familiar - and even overdone - trope of modern Holocaust museums and exhibitions. The boxcar, cattle car or open coal car universally recognized symbols of the Holocaust as much as the Warsaw Ghetto boy with raised hands photographed from the Stroop Report or the stripped uniform of concentration camp inmates.

Berlin, Germany. Wittenbergplatz U-Bahn station. "Places of Terror We Must Never Forget," 1967. Erected by the League for Human Rights. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2003.

In Berlin, at the Wittenbergplatz U-Bahn Station, is the striking memorial signpost - that lists the names of concentration and death camps as destinations as simply if they were on the schedule of daily commuter trains. The ordinariness of the sign means that thousands of Berliners and visitors pass it everyday without ta thought - but that is the idea - a reminder that that is exactly what happened when Jews were rounded up and deported in Berlin and hundreds of other towns and cities and their neighbors hardly reacted. We must remember the horrors of the Nazi regime began  and took route in the relative normality, or at least ambivalence and avoidance, of everyday daily German life. Train stations, trains, and train workers were essential to the successful removal of social undesirable, and the eventual execution of the Final Solution throughout Europe.

Today, at the Nollendorfplatz ststion, where the World War I memorial is a room of its own mostly passed by without thought by busy commuters, there is also a recent memorial affixed to the exterior of the station that commemorates the persecution and murder of homosexuals by the Nazi regime. The inscribed inverted triangle says "Put to death, put to silence - for the homosexual victims of National Socialism."Nollendorfplatz was the center of gay nightclub and social life -in the Berlin in the 1920s and early 1930s, most famously at the Eldorado, and best known to English-speaking audiences through Christopher Isherwood's "Berlin Stories," made into the musical Cabaret. Isherwood lived at Nollendorfstrase 17.

Berlin, Germany. Nollendorfplatz U-Bahn Station, Memorial to gay victims of Nazi repression and murder. Photo: CHailey (flickr)

I'm told by a friend that riginally a large free-standing monument to contemporary Gay Pride in the form of a rainbow-colored pencil, was erected nearby the wall plaque.  Due to vandalism, however, it was moved across the street onto a better protected, but more isolated, traffic island. Now the link between past persecution and the contemporary gay pride movement is less clear.  This especially seems to be the case since I couldn't find information about the "pencil" monument online or in guidebooks. So if you know - tell me more!

Berlin, Germany. Nollendorfplatz rainbow pencil monument to gay pride. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2016.

You can read more about the gay history of the neighborhood at Cabaret Berlin.

 

Another memorial is the Memorial to the Homosexuals Persecuted Under the National Socialist Regime, which stands  in the Tiergarten, opposite the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.

The most impressive - and costly - of the rail station memorials is the Grunewald Deportations Memorial and Track 17, erected in two parts - in 1991 and 1998 - to commemorate the approximately 35,000 Jews who were deported from the Grunewald Freight Depot to their deaths in East European Ghettos and Camps. The memorials are near the Berlin-Grunewald S-Bahn Station. In 1991, Polish sculptor Karol Bronitowski designed a eighteen meter long and three meter high concrete wall that appears partly broken and with deep cracks and with impressions of human silhouettes. An inscription on a column tells - very briefly - of the deportations. Bronitowski's memorial is mostly about the round up Jew's and their transport to the deportation platform.

In 1998, another memorial, called Track 17 was dedicated. Commissioned  by Deutsche Bahn, it is almost adjacent to the first, and focuses specifically on the deportation by train. This monument, designed by German architects Nikolaus Hirsch, Wolfgang Lorch and Andrea Wandel consists of partly broken sheets of steel along a railroad track and upon the edges of the platform the dates, destinations and numbers of victims of each deportation are cast in steel.  According to Deutsche Bahn:

 "The core element of the memorial is composed of 186 cast steel objects arranged in chronological order and set in the ballast next to the platform edge. Each object states the date of a transport, the number of deportees, the point of departure in Berlin and the destination. The vegetation that has developed at Platform 17 over the years has been left to grow between the rails and now forms an integral part of the memorial as a symbol that no more trains will ever depart from this platform."

The monument was initiated by the German national railway company Deutsche Bahn,, to successor  deportations to the Deutsche Reichsbahn, which has carried out the train deportations. According to Deutsche Bahn:

No business company can whitewash its history or choose which events in its past it wishes to remember. To keep the memory of the victims of National Socialism alive, the management board decided to erect one central memorial at Grunewald station on behalf of Deutsche Bahn AG, commemorating the deportation transports handled by Deutsche Reichsbahn during the years of the Nazi regime....Deutsche Bahn AG hopes that the memorial will help to ensure that the crimes committed during the National Socialist regime will never be forgotten. The memorial commemorates the victims, is a warning to future generations, and a place of remembrance.

Berlin, Germany. Grunewald Memorial Wall. Karol Bronitowski, Sculptor, 1991. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2003

Berlin, Germany. Grunewald, Track 17 Memorial. Hirsch, Lorch & Wandel, architects, 1998. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2003.

Berlin, Germany. Grunewald, Track 17 Memorial. Hirsch, Lorch & Wandel, architects, 1998. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2003.

Berlin, Germany. Grunewald, Track 17 Memorial. Hirsch, Lorch & Wandel, architects, 1998. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2003.

There is another memorial to the deported on the Putlitz Bridge in Berlin, the runs across the railroad tracks of the Moabit freight depot. This was another point of departure for cattle cars carrying Jews heading east. The abstract monument, designed by Volkmaar Haase and erected in 1987.  I have not seen this monument personally, so cannot comment on its effectiveness. There is another memorial to the deported on the Putlitz Bridge in Berlin, the runs across the railroad tracks of the Moabit freight depot. This was another point of departure for cattle cars carrying Jews heading east. The abstract monument, designed by Volkmaar Haase and erected in 1987.  I have not seen this monument personally, so cannot comment on its effectiveness.

There is another memorial to the deported on the Putlitz Bridge in Berlin, the runs across the railroad tracks of the Moabit freight depot. This was another point of departure for cattle cars carrying Jews heading east. The abstract monument, designed by Volkmaar Haase and erected in 1987.

Remembering Max Liebermann (1847-1935)

Remembering Max Liebermann (1847-1935)
by Samuel D. Gruber

Max Liebermann in his studio

Max Liebermann, Jewish Quarter in Amsterdam, (1905), from Max Liebermann from Realism to Impressionism, p. 94

In conjunction with the course I am teaching this semester at Syracuse University, "The Holocaust, Memory, and the Visual Arts" I will be posting more frequently about artist suppressed, oppressed, exiled and murdered by the Nazis between 1933 and 1945.  I'll also be posting more about the art of Holocaust Survivors and about Holocaust commemorative art and architecture.

Today is the anniversary of the death of the great German-Jewish painter Max Liebermann (1847-1935), In the first decades of the 20th century Liebermann achieved the rare status of being considered both a leading innovator and modernist in German art and also as the recognized leader of established German art institutions. In a certain sense, Liebermann lived long enough that his more "radical" and "foreign" French-inspired painting of the late 19th-century came - in the face of newer modern styles - to be seen as almost classic, and therefore widely acceptable throughout most segments of German society. As a Jew - even an extremely acculturated Jew - his fame and acclaim were unprecedented in German history. But his success did not last through his last years. 

Liebermann suffered the indignity of exclusion in his last two years - which corresponded to the beginning of the Nazi regime. His death in February 1935, however, probably spared him real suffering in the years to come. In 1940, his widow Martha Liebermann, was forced to sell their villa, where Liebermann had painted his lush impressionist landscapes for decades. Then, on March, 1943, she was notified to get ready for deportation to Theresienstadt concentration camp. Aged 85 and bedridden from a stroke, she preferred to commit suicide in the family home, Haus Liebermann where today, there is a stolperstein for her in front of the home by the Berlin's Brandenburg Gate.

Max Liebermann.  12 Year Old Jesus in Temple with Scholars

Drawing (top),  Painting (below) (1879). From Max Liebermann from Realism to Impressionism p. 74

Liebermann made few works that were specifically Jewish in subject.  One of his best paintings of his early years (1879) was The 12-Year-Old Jesus in the Temple With the Scholars, represented the boy Jesus in the Temple.  Originally, the young Jesus looked scruffy and decidedly Jewish, and the background was more a contemporary synagogue than any ancient setting. Liebermann was widely criticized by Christian critics and views for work approaching blasphemy. He redid the work with a more "Aryan" Jesus, but in the future stayed away from "controversial" subjects. Liebermann was also inspired early on by the work of his good friend the Dutch-Jewish painter Joseph Israels. Influrneced by Israels, Liebermann created several views of the crowded, colorful, Jewish markets in Amsterdam. His favoring of French and Dutch inspired Impressionism also infuriated the German nationalist cultural establishment at the turn of the 20th century.  From 1899 to 1911 Lieberman led the foremost avant-garde art group in Germany, the Berlin Secession.

Max Liebermann, View from the Tiergarten, (1900), pastel. from Berlin Metropolis, fig. 80

Max Liebermann. Samson and Delilah (1910). From Max Liebermann from Realism to Impressionism p. 77

From 1920 on, however, in a sign of how German artistic tastes had changed, Liebermann served as was president of the Prussian Academy of Arts, a position from which in an rare political act he resigned in 1933 when the academy decided to ban exhibition by Jewish artists. But he surely would soon have been removed from the position under the Nazi laws. While watching the Nazis celebrate their victory by marching through the Brandenburg Gate, Liebermann was reported to have commented: "Ich kann gar nicht soviel fressen, wie ich kotzen möchte." ("I could not possibly eat as much as I would like to throw up."). Liebermann died on February 8, 1935, at his home near the Brandenburg Gate.

Despite his fame, his death was not reported in the Nazi-controlled media and there were no representatives of the Academy of the Arts or the city at his funeral.

 Today, Liebermann is again included among the great German artists, and he is much celebrated for his cityscapes, landscapes and portraits.  On 30 April 2006 the Max Liebermann Society opened a permanent museum in the Liebermann family's villa in the Wannsee district of Berlin.

Germany: Multiple Memorials for Berlin's Munchener Strasse Synagogue

Berlin, Germany. Image of the former Münchener Straße 37 on view in the Bayerischer Platz U-Bahn station. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2016

Germany: Multiple Memorials for Berlin's Munchener Strasse Synagogue
by Samuel D. Gruber

In November 2016, I was in Berlin for a few days and had the chance to visit more Jewish and Holocaust-related historical and commemorative sites than usual. I've already posted about the Jewish cemetery on Grosse Hamburger Strasse and the monument and burial section at the Weissensee Cemetery for Jewish soldiers who died in World War I. Here's information on a lesser known commemorative site.

The domed synagogue at Münchener Straße 37 in the Schöneberg section of Berlin, designed by Jewish architect Max Fraenkel (1856-1926), was dedicated in 1910 and was at the center of a heavily Jewish neighborhood around Bayerischer Platz.  It was looted but not burned on Kristallnacht (November 9, 1938), but was subsequently damaged by aerial bombing during the war years, and  torn down in 1956. The synagogue, which was a transitional structure between historicism and modernism, was notable for its large dome, and as one of the more architecturally distinctive buildings in the largely residential neighborhood. The composer Kurt Weill had a job as the synagogue choir conductor for a few months in 1921. 

Today, there is a part of a school building on the synagogue site, but the synagogue is remembered in the neighborhood in various ways. Each memorial corresponds to a particular phase of Berlin's facing the past and acknowledge the Shoah. There is an official abstract street level monument (1960s), a student-built collaborative memorial (1990s) and recently an extensive photo exhibit underground in the nearby U-Bahn station.

At the school, the original synagogue outline is remembered through garden design and in 1994-95 students erected a memorial brick wall on the school grounds to remember local Jews who lived in Berlin-Schöneberg. According to school officials,"the idea was based on the artist Horst Hoheisel from Kassel who gave stimulus on his "memorial from down below" in the framework of the 6th grade teaching lesson "National Socialism".

Berlin, Germany. Löcknitz Primary School on site of the synagogue at Münchener Straße 37. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2016.

In front of the school and near the street is a more traditional monument, designed in a cubist style by Gerson Fehrenbach in 1963. It declares: "Hier stand der 1909 erbauten synagoge der jüdischen Gemeinde" (Here stood the Synagogue of the Jewish Community built in 1909).

Berlin, Germany. Monument to destroyed synagogue at synagogue at Münchener Straße 37. Gerson Fehrenbach, arch., 1963. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2016.

Berlin, Germany. Monument to destroyed synagogue at synagogue at Münchener Straße 37. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2016.

A plaque beneath gives further information about the fate of the building.  

Hier stand von 1909-1956 eine Synagoge. Sie wurde während der Reichspogromnacht
am 9. Nov. 1938 wegen ihrer Lage in einem
Wohnhaus nicht zerstört.
Nach der Vertreibung und Vernichtung
der jüdischen Mitbürgerinnen und Mitbürger
durch die Nationalsozialisten verlor sie
ihre Funktion und wurde 1956 abgerissen.”

In the nearby U-Bahn station there is a extensive photo exhibition on the history of the neighborhood. Since it was a heavily Jewish district in the interwar period, there is are many images of the synagogue and of prominent Jews who lived nearby. When I visited the station in November 2016, the former synagogue - already destroyed once - was suffering the indignity of having a temporary construction barrier interrupting the view of its full facade.
 

Berlin, Germany. images of the former Münchener Straße 37 on view in the Bayerischer Platz U-Bahn station, with a construction barrier further "destroying" the synagogue today. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2016

Berlin, Germany. Image of the memorial wall constricted by local students on the site the former Münchener Straße 37. Photo on view in the Bayerischer Platz U-Bahn station. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2016

Berlin, Germany. Image of the memorial wall constricted by local students on the site the former Münchener Straße 37. Photo on view in the Bayerischer Platz U-Bahn station. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2016.

Bayerischer Platz neighborhood, including Münchener Straße, is also the location of the noteworthy "Places of Remembrance," (Orte des Erinnerns) project designed by artists Renata Stih and Frieder Schnock and installed in 1993.  The memorial, which consists of 80 signs which flatly state the dates and essence of laws promulgated by the Nazis in the 1930s to curb the rights of Jews.  This project remains one of the most thought provoking Holocaust commemorative installations anywhere - if one takes the time to look.

Berlin, Germany. Bayerischer Platz and "Places of Remembrance," (Orte des Erinnerns) project designed by Renata Stih and Frieder Schnock. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2016.

ABerlin, Germany. Bayerischer Platz and "Places of Remembrance," (Orte des Erinnerns) project designed by Renata Stih and Frieder Schnock. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2016.

Berlin, Germany. Bayerischer Platz and "Places of Remembrance," (Orte des Erinnerns) project designed by Renata Stih and Frieder Schnock. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2016.