New Shoah Memorial unveiled in Germany

An evocative stone and ceramic memorial to German Jews from
Würzburg who were deported to concentration camps by train has been unveiled outside the city’s main railway station.

Stylised pieces of luggage in the form of abandoned suitcases now form the unique interactive memorial symbolising the loss and disappearance of more than 2,000 Jews from the Bavarian city during the Holocaust.

It is nearly 80 years since the last train sent Jews to their death from the main station. The memorial, designed by artist Matthias Braun, features QR codes on the luggage, which people passing by can scan on their mobile phones to learn more.

The code links to information about the Jewish population and history of towns that were once home to Jewish families deported by train to the notorious Theresienstadt concentration camp, just outside Prague.

Josef Schuster, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, who lives in Würzburg, told Germany’s main Jewish weekly, the Juedische Allgemeine, that the memorial was the first in Germany to feature related monuments “at the central place of remembrance and in the
local communities”.