Annotations
Birkenfeld
4/30/1942
About twenty-five people stand on the flat platform of the small Neubrücke train station. A train signal is seen on the left-hand side.
Most of them look to the left. In the background, a group of people is engaged in talk. The long shadow indicates that a train is approaching.
Suitcases and luggage rolled up in sleeping bags stand in the center of the platform.
Annotations
People
2
Keywords
3
Historical context
Deportation von Birkenfeld nach Kraśniczyn am 30.04.1942
The deportation was coordinated by the Gestapo head office in Koblenz and organized by Birkenfeld’s mayor Friedrich Sauermann. Shortly before the deportation, Sauermann changed an old mill into an assembly camp so that it could house residents from the rural district who were persecuted for being Jewish. He billed the Gestapo for the costs through the district office. It is unknown how many days the deportees had to stay in the assembly camp.
On the morning of April 30, 1942, the inmates of the camp were forced to walk to the nearby Neubrücke train station and to board a train to Koblenz. From Koblenz, the Birkenfeld Jews were deported on transport DA 9 to Kraśniczyn in the Lublin district as were other deportees from the administrative district of Koblenz. It is likely that the train arrived there with a total of 760 people on board on May 3, 1942.
In the Lublin district, the people either starved, were shot or gassed in Sobibor or Belzec. No one from Birkenfeld survived.
About the image series
The only picture that has survived from Birkenfeld shows people persecuted for being Jews waiting for their turn to board the train on the platform. They wear thick coats, protect their faces with their caps and hats and keep their hands in their pockets. It is cold. Some of them have small rectangular slips above their compulsory badges which seem to have been fastenened to their coats by pins. They probably show the people’s transport numbers.
Some suitcases and luggage rolled up in sleeping bags can be seen on the platform.
The photographer took the picture on the platform publicly for all to see. Standing slightly in the background, an elderly Jewish man with a moustache looks directly into the camera.
Photographer
Unknown,
The photographer has remained unknown. He or she obviously was able to move freely on the narrow platform of the Neubrück train station and to take at least one photograph publicly for all to see. This fact suggests a relatively close relationship with the local perpetrators.
Provenance
It has not proved possible to fully clarify the origin of the photograph or how it came to be preserved. What we know for certain is that Edgar Mais, a teacher, local historian and deputee, who published the photograph for the first time in a study in 1988, was in the possession of a print. It is unclear, though, whether the print was an original one as the print can no longer be found.
A reproduction of the photograph in 17 x 12 cm format has survived in the main state archives in Koblenz. This reproduction is shown here.
Call number at source archive
Bestand 710, Nr. 9449
Title at source archive
Ohne Titel
Acknowledgements
We extend particular thanks to Hubert Stuhrmann from the Birkenfeld regional museum and to Christina Villars Perez from the main state archives in Koblenz for their support with the description of the photograph.
Text and research by Christoph Kreutzmüller und Marcel Layher.
Kooperationsverbund #LastSeen. Bilder der NS-Deportationen Dr. Alina Bothe Projektleiterin
c/o Selma Stern Zentrum für Jüdische Studien Berlin-Brandenburg
Freie Universität Berlin
Habelschwerdter Allee 34A
14195 Berlin
lastseen@zedat.fu-berlin.de
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