Berlin marks 85th anniversary of Nazi deportations at station memorial

Politicians and civil society representatives gathered at Berlin's Platform 17 Memorial on Sunday to commemorate 85 years since the Nazis started to systematically deport Jews from the German capital.

Berlin Mayor Kai Wegner, Federal Constitutional Court President Stephan Harbarth and Israeli ambassador Ron Prosor were among those who laid flowers at the memorial at the city's Grunewald station.

Harbarth said the start of the deportations from Berlin and other European cities in 1941 had marked the beginning of a "systematic mass extermination that denied all humanity." Lessons must be drawn from this, he said.

"We must never forget where anti-Semitism and racism can lead, where prejudice, contempt and delusion can lead and where mere indifference can lead," Harbarth warned. "We must never stop reminding ourselves of the senselessness of war and violence, genocide, persecution and expulsion."

He said there must be no let-up in efforts against anti-Semitism, which is still rife in Germany.

Prosor made similar remarks. "The responsibility ... that this place places on us does not end with a commemorative event," the ambassador said. "It only ends when Jewish life in Germany can be lived freely, safely and without fear."

The Platform 17 Memorial commemorates around 10,000 Jews who were transported by train from Grunewald station to extermination camps during the Nazi dictatorship. Another 30,000 were forcibly deported from Berlin's Moabit freight station and about 10,000 from the Anhalter station.

Part of the memorial, unveiled in 1998, consists of 186 cast-steel plates listing the dates and destinations of the transports in chronological order.