Berlin-Grunewald is a

railway station Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...

in the

upper class Upper class in modern societies is the social class composed of people who hold the highest social status, usually are the wealthiest members of class society, and wield the greatest political power. According to this view, the upper class is gen ...

Grunewald Grunewald is the name of both a locality and a forest in Germany: * Grunewald (forest) * Grunewald (locality) Grünewald may refer to: * Grünewald (surname) * Grünewald, Germany, a municipality in Brandenburg, Germany * Grünewald (Luxembourg), ...

district of

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

. It is served by the

S-Bahn The S-Bahn is the name of hybrid urban- suburban rail systems serving a metropolitan region in German-speaking countries. Some of the larger S-Bahn systems provide service similar to rapid transit systems, while smaller ones often resemble co ...

line . In the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, the station was the principal location for deporting Berlin

Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

to the

East East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the fa ...

during

The Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...

History

The station opened on 1 August 1879 on the '' Wetzlarer Bahn'' from Berlin to

Blankenheim Blankenheim may refer to: Places *Blankenheim, North Rhine-Westphalia, a municipality in western Germany * Blankenheim, Saxony-Anhalt, a municipality in eastern Germany *Blankenheim Castle, a schloss above the village of Blankenheim in the Eifel mo ...

and

Wetzlar Wetzlar () is a city in the state of Hesse, Germany. It is the twelfth largest city in Hesse with currently 55,371 inhabitants at the beginning of 2019 (including second homes). As an important cultural, industrial and commercial center, the un ...

, the southwestern continuation of the

Stadtbahn ' (; German for "city railway"; plural ') is a German word referring to various types of urban rail transport. One type of transport originated in the 19th century, firstly in Berlin and followed by Vienna, where rail routes were created that co ...

. It was originally named ''Hundekehle'' after a nearby lake and received its current name on 15 October 1884, when the former ''Grunewald'' station reopened under the name of

Halensee Halensee () is a ''locality'' (''Ortsteil'') of Berlin in the district (''Bezirk'') of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf. Halensee was established as a villa and tenement settlement in about 1880, in the suburb of Wilmersdorf, which became part of Great ...

. The entrance hall modelled on a castle gate was finished in 1899. Berlin-Grunewald was connected to the S-Bahn network on 11 June 1928.

Platform 17

Starting on 18 October 1941 until February 1945, the adjacent goods station was one of the major sites of deportation of Jews from Berlin. The trains left for

ghettos A ghetto, often called ''the'' ghetto, is a part of a city in which members of a minority group live, especially as a result of political, social, legal, environmental or economic pressure. Ghettos are often known for being more impoverished t ...

in Eastern Europe such as Lodz, Litzmannstadt and

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...

. In 1942 trains left directly for

Auschwitz Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...

and

Theresienstadt concentration camp Theresienstadt Ghetto was established by the Schutzstaffel, SS during World War II in the fortress town of Terezín, in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (German occupation of Czechoslovakia, German-occupied Czechoslovakia). Theresienstad ...

s. A total of 35 trains transporting 17,000 Jews departed from Platform 17 (german: Gleis 17) directly to Auschwitz. By the end of the war more than 50,000 Jews had been deported through this station.

Memorial

On 18 October 1991 a monument was inaugurated at the ramp leading to the former freight yard. On 27 January 1998 the

Deutsche Bahn The (; abbreviated as DB or DB AG) is the national railway company of Germany. Headquartered in the Bahntower in Berlin, it is a joint-stock company ( AG). The Federal Republic of Germany is its single shareholder. describes itself as the se ...

established a memorial entitled "Gleis 17" (Platform 17). The installation records the dates of the transports, the number of people they carried and their destinations. Near the station entrance there is a plaque detailing the history of the station and its role in The Holocaust.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Grunewald Berlin S-Bahn stations Buildings and structures in Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf Railway stations in Germany opened in 1879

History

Platform 17

Memorial

See also

References