By, Daniel Sugarman
1 min read
ByDaniel Sugarman, Daniel Sugarman
Dignitaries gathered in Luxembourg on Sunday to commemorate 75 years since the beginning of the Nazi transportation of Jews from Western Europe.
Grand Duke Henri of Luxembourg was among those who gathered at Luxembourg City’s train station to mark the first of seven Nazi deportations of Jews from the city-state.
Xavier Bettel, Prime Minister of Luxembourg and Lydie Polfer, Mayor of Luxembourg city, were also in attendance.
On October 18, 1941, the Nazis began sending Jews east to the Lodz Ghetto in Poland. Most of those deported subsequently perished in the death camps.
In total, 323 Jews were deported, and the Grand Duke was one of 323 people who took part in the special commemoration which saw 323 suitcases stacked into a commemorative tower.
Mr Bettel gave a speech in which he announced a Holocaust memorial would be built in 2018, on the site of Luxembourg’s first synagogue.
At an event held today in Berlin, a crowd gathered at Track 17 at the German capital’s Grunewald Station, which is now a memorial to the tens of thousands of Jews deported from the site.
Candles were lit, psalms were recited, and Horst Selbiger, an 88-year old witness of the deportation, spoke to the assembled gathering.
Mr Selbiger’s mother was not Jewish, but his father was. He and his parents managed to avoid deportation, but many of his relatives and friends were sent east, never to return.
“For me, Track 17 is the train station from where all the suffering began”, he told the Deutsche Welle newspaper.
“Us kids were smarter than the grown-ups. We knew by 1941 that the Jews were being exterminated like vermin.
“61 people with the name Selbiger were deported and killed. One of them was my first great love. And all these people call out to me: tell our story!”
