Opening of the Memorial Exhibition "80 Years of Deportations Vienna-Riga"
Vienna Mayor Michael Ludwig recently opened a new memorial exhibition entitled "80 Years of Deportations Vienna-Riga" at Vienna's central train station. The exhibition is intended to remind the public about the horrors of the Shoah and to commemorate the victims. Learn more about the new exhibition.
Vienna Mayor Michael Ludwig (3rd from left): "The motto ‘Never forget’ must not end in Sunday speeches but is a work assignment for all of us to inform subsequent generations about the brutal Nazi regime and the inhumanity of that time." / Picture: © Magistrat der Stadt Wien / PID / Christian Fürthner
A new exhibition entitled “80 Years of Deportations Vienna-Riga” was recently opened at Vienna’s central train station (Wien Hauptbahnhof) by Mayor Michael Ludwig and Andreas Matthä, Chairman of the Board of ÖBB Holding AG.
Ludwig and Matthä were accompanied by Ambassador of Israel to Austria, Mordechai Rodgold, and the Ambassador of Latvia to Austria, Guna Japina, as well as the President of the Jewish Community Vienna, Oskar Deutsch, and Hannah Lessing, Secretary-General of the National Fund of the Republic of Austria for Victims of National Socialism.
Visible reminder of deportations at the main station
Eighty years ago, the Nazis had started to deport Jews from all over the German Reich to the East.
The first transport left Vienna on October 15, 1941, and between December 1941 and February 1942, more than 4,200 Jews were deported from the Aspang train station in Vienna to the ghetto in Riga.
Most of them were murdered immediately after arriving in Riga after a journey lasting several days under unimaginably cruel conditions.
Only about 100 people from these transports survived the ghetto and forced labor; 4,087 people, including many children, were murdered.
The exhibition, which was created in cooperation with the City of Vienna, the Austrian Federal Railways, and the National Fund of the Republic of Austria for Victims of National Socialism, is intended to increase public awareness of the inhumanity of National Socialism and to remind people of this fact.
The commemorative exhibition “80 Years of Deportations Vienna-Riga” is freely accessible until 30 November 2021 at Vienna Central Station in the hall right next to the main entrance. It will also be subsequently displayed in Riga.
Mayor Ludwig explained, “This exhibition is another impetus to remember together this terrible time. Because the motto ‘Never forget’ must not end in Sunday speeches but is a work assignment for all of us to inform subsequent generations about the brutal Nazi regime and the inhumanity of that time. Remembering has the goal of ensuring that something like what happened during the time of Nazi rule never happens again.”
The mayor noted that Vienna’s central station is a great place to house the exhibition because thousands of people pass through there every day, and the public’s attention will be drawn to the memorial helping to remind people about the horrific time of the Shoah.
ÖBB CEO Matthä said, “It is important to me that this terrible chapter of our history is not only discussed in museums or at universities but is also visible in public space. That is why we have chosen Vienna's main train station as a highly frequented public place to give the history of the Holocaust and the cruel persecution of people a place in everyday life as well, thus bringing it closer to the people.”