German President of the European Parliament invited to Support Train of Remembrance
Dear Mr Pottering
As you will know a Train of Remembrance has been journeying through your country since November 2007 and it is likely to continue throughout 2009. I am sure it is not necessary to remind you that this train is a moving memorial (in both senses of the words) to the one million children who were transported by the Nazis to the extermination or concentration camps in the 1940s.
So far this train has made some 70 stops, often for three days or so each. The train then becomes an exhibition for the local population to visit.
All of this enterprise has been achieved without the help or support of the German government, the German Ministry of Transport or the successor organisation to the Reichsbahn. None have offered any services to facilitate the train's progress or purpose. Nor have any of them made a financial contribution to the costs.
What is much worse is the attitude of Deutsche Bahn AG. This successor organisation to the Reichsbahn has demanded 3.50 euros per kilometer travelled, and 45 euros for every hour the train is halted at a station. They also charge the organisers for the use of the locomotive, for overnight parking on the track, and for route planning.
It is an obscene irony that the original trains which carried all those innocent children to their deaths incurred no such extra charges.
As the president of this parliament, who has many times gone on record condemning the Nazi regime, may I urge you - now - to apply intense pressure on the German government to assist the organisers of the Train of Remembrance.
Ashley Mote
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