Luxembourg City marked the 84th anniversary of the first Nazi deportation of Jews from the country with a solemn ceremony at the central railway station on Thursday – the site from which hundreds were sent to their deaths.
A cross-border commemoration ceremony was held at the central railway station in Luxembourg City on Thursday, marking 84 years since the first deportation of Jews from Luxembourg during the Second World War.
On this date in 1941, the ordeal began for 323 Jews who were forced onto trains at the station. An additional 190 people were later added to the transport in Trier. This train was the first deportation transport from Western Europe to the Litzmannstadt ghetto – the name the Nazis gave to the Polish city of Łódź.
Titled Remembrance Without Borders, Thursday's ceremony took place at the site from which the train departed. Since 2019, the Auschwitz Luxembourg Committee and German partners have organised these joint annual ceremonies, which aim not only to reflect on history but also to critically examine the present.
"As Jews were not seen as human beings, it was part of Nazi policy to humiliate people, to ostracise them, and that is why they were summoned to the station," said Henri Juda, founder of MemoShoah Luxembourg. He shared that his own father and grandmother were among those summoned in 1941.
The ceremony attracted the attention of passersby at the busy station. Students from the National School for Adults in Luxembourg City and the Nordstad Lycée in Diekirch participated by reading biographies of the victims and a poem composed by prisoners in the Theresienstadt ghetto. They concluded by lighting a candle in memory of those who were deported and perished.
This event is part of a larger series dedicated to remembering the first deportations from Luxembourg. Further activities are planned in various cities, including conferences, lectures, and a memorial march on 24 October from Bollendorf to Echternach. The route will trace the Sûre River and pass through towns where Jewish communities once lived before being deported.
