Education Open Memory | 20240531

Open Memory at the railway tracks of the Cologne Central Station (Köln Hauptbahnhof)

Johannes Blum , Open Memory | Miracles•Media | 20240531_02

May 8, 2010, at the opening of the Open Memory exhibition in Cologne (Köln) Germany, Johannes Blum (Brussels) is guiding his audience at a Transport XX canvas, pointing to the portraits of Simon Gronowski and his mother Chana Kaplan. Simon Gronowski is seen from behind In the audience. Johannes Blum had assisted also with the preparations of this event.
Johannes Blum (originally German) has been living in Brussels since 1969, was naturalised around 1980, and is known for recording ca 1400 interviews — with his association Les Compagnons de la Mémoire — of deported Jews, resistance fighters, political prisoners, Jewish hidden children, and also Spanish Republicans and former combatants of the International Brigades, survivors of the Rwandese genocide and others.

Some of Johannes Blum’s video recordings are shown in our documentary Transport XX to Auschwitz, like an interview with Robert Maistriau who together with two other young men from Brussels – Youra Livschitz, and Jean Franklemon – attacked the Transport XX deportation train to Auschwitz, and stopped the train close to Brussels to open one of the cattle cars and help prisoners escape ….
Another of Johannes Blum’s video recordings shown in our documentary Transport XX to Auschwitz, is the interview done by the German researcher Tanja von Fransecky, in Brussels in 2009, of the jewish resistance fighter Regine Krochmal (see below).

School, Open Memory | Miracles•Media | 20240531_03

Guided tour with a school class at the Open Memory expo, later in May 2010, at the portrait of the young resistance fighter Régine Krochmal, who escaped from the Transport XX deportation train, heading for Auschwitz, through the air vent of the cattle wagon , just seconds before this cattle car train was attacked close to Brussels …

Régine Krochmal, Open Memory | Miracles•Media | 20240531_04

School, Open Memory | Miracles•Media | 20240531_05

Notes

Images

Open Memory, May 2010, Cologne | Miracles•Media | 20240531_01 | TakeNode 218b25bf-361b-4def-b390-955ff7ea0621

Johannes Blum , Open Memory | Miracles•Media | 20240531_02 | TakeNode 2395cb77-2319-460e-97e7-cd66691adfdd

School, Open Memory | Miracles•Media | 20240531_03 | TakeNode fcaa2899-a5a6-4bc2-9c9c-d749c6dd536d

Régine Krochmal, Open Memory | Miracles•Media | 20240531_04 | TakeNode 6ba28aaa-137f-4412-a9e0-614edce3f935

School, Open Memory | Miracles•Media | 20240531_05 | TakeNode f8786549-9d2b-4d7c-92af-5e5a3e59647c

Edited images (from anonymous photographers) selected from web gallery photos by Bahn erinnern , and S. Grollmuss at the Open Memory site open-memory.info , retrieved on Apr 13 , 2017.

Karen Lynn , Richard Bloom , Michel van der Burg. Transport XX to Auschwitz, the only documented attack on a death train. Online video in post Documentary film “Transport XX to Auschwitz” | michelvanderburg•com | 20130419 | URL https://wp.me/p14gqN-hA

Citation info : Education Open Memory | Miracles•Media | 20240531

Aerial Open Memory | 20240529

Aerial photo May 2010 of the memorial installation “Open Memory” in Cologne (Köln) Germany — between the Hohenzollern Bridge on the Rhine river, the railway tracks of the Cologne Central Station (Köln Hauptbahnhof), and the Cologne Cathedral (Kölner Dom).

Notes

Edited image (anonymous photographer) selected from web gallery photos by Bahn erinnern , and S. Grollmuss at the Open Memory site open-memory.info – retrieved on Apr 13 , 2017.

Citation info : Aerial Open Memory | Miracles•Media | 20240529 | TakeNode 505658fd-7787-4b25-be98-2e2c9e399292

Visit Transport Z | 20240528

Open Memory, May 2010, Cologne | Miracles•Media | 20240528

Open Memory in Cologne (Köln) , Germany, May 8, 2010. Photo at the opening of the Open Memory installation with Simon Gronowski (survivor Transport XX to Auschwitz) together with Maria Baumeister (Cologne Initiative ‘Die Bahn erinnern’) and, seen from behind, Gitta R. (Lovara group of Roma) in front of one of the canvases with photographs and silhouettes of 351 Sinti and Roma from Northern France and Belgium, deported with “Transport Z” in January 1944 from Kazerne Dossin in Mechelen, Belgium to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp.

Notes

Documentary ‘Open Memory’ in :
Open Memory | Miracles Docs #3 | 20240523 | https://miracles.media/2024/05/23/open-memory-miracles-docs-3-20240523/

Edited image (anonymous photographer) selected from web gallery photos by Bahn erinnern , and S. Grollmuss at the Open Memory site open-memory.info – retrieved on Apr 13 , 2017.

Citation info : Visit Transport Z | Open Memory, May 2010, Cologne | Miracles•Media | 20240528 | TakeNode 85faa3e6-5168-4909-9c02-fd233fa4a1bd

Open Memory | Miracles Docs #3 | 20240523

Open Memory , Cologne, May 2010. Transport XX (left) and Transport Z (right) in front of the with Cologne Cathedral. Still : Open Memory | Miracles Docs #3 | Miracles•Media | 20240523

From May 8th to May 24th, 2010, the memorial installation “Open Memory” was on display in a prominent location in Köln (Cologne, Germany) — in front of the Hohenzollern Bridge, at the left bank of the Rhine river, parallel to the railway tracks of the Cologne Central Station (Köln Hauptbahnhof), with the Cologne Cathedral (Kölner Dom) in the background.

It consisted of 26 large canvases on which portraits of more than 1,500 people were depicted. This open-air exhibition was intended to commemorate three events that occurred during this period: the end of the Second World War in Europe on May 8th and 9th, 1945, the 70th anniversary of the attack by the German Wehrmacht on the Benelux countries and France, and the 70th anniversary of the deportation of the Sinti and Roma from Cologne and the Rhineland (Western Germany).

The Museum La Coupole had created six canvases with photographs or silhouettes of 351 Sinti and Roma from Northern France and Belgium, deported with “Transport Z” in January 1944 from Kazerne Dossin in Mechelen, Belgium to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp.

On 20 other canvases were the portraits of 1,200 Jewish people deported with “Transport XX” in April 1943 from Kazerne Dossin in Mechelen to Auschwitz. This exhibition was created by the Jewish Deportation and Resistance Museum (Kazerne Dossin) in Mechelen. “Transport XX” is the only deportation train in Europe that was stopped by a resistance group.

The exhibition lined the route Roma and Sinti from Köln had to take from May 1940 en route across the Rhine via the Hohenzollern Bridge to the Cologne Fair (Köln Messe) transit camp for deportation to the extermination camps. The route was marked May 6, 1990, by the artist Gunter Demnig (later known for his Stolperstein project) by printing the writing “May 1940 – 1000 Sinti and Roma” on the streets in Cologne, using a wheel for painting with white paint.

The Open Memory installation was presented by : the Jewish Deportation and Resistance Museum (Kazerne Dossin) in Mechelen, Belgium • La Coupole – History Centre in Wizernes, France • NS Documentation Center Cologne • AK Memorial Centers NRW • Yavne Memorial and Educational Center • EL-DE-Haus Cologne.

Film by : Michel van der Burg, thanks to an amateur (2010) slide presentation by A. Lototsky

Construction Kazerne Dossin | 20240424

Citation info : Construction Kazerne Dossin | Miracles•Media | 20240424

Construction of the new Kazerne Dossin museum, across the Dossin barracks – transit camp during WWII – housing both the Jewish Museum of Deportation and Resistance, as well as apartments, April 20, 2011, Mechelen, Belgium.
Citation info : Construction Kazerne Dossin | Miracles•Media | 20240424 | TakeNode 7865a3f9-5a76-479f-af10-306a60fe982b

Close Up | Miracles Docs #2 | 20240423

Brussels, Belgium. February 28th, 2009.
Day two of my encounter with the TRANSPORT XX installation outside at the Royal park in Brussels, that presented 1200 photographic portraits of Jews deported from Mechelen (Belgium) to Auschwitz, April 19th 1943.
That day, Saturday morning, three close-up long takes – ‘traveller shots’ – of two rows of the installation were recorded. The first take of the bottom row is presented in slow-motion here. Two months later – April 19, 2009 – the short film TRANSPORT XX — installation Brussels was published.

Kazerne Dossin digitized the photo’s, that mostly are from the “National State Archives of Belgium. Ministry of Justice, Public Safety Office, Foreigner’s Police, individual files“.
Thank you: Marjan Verplancke and co-workers of the Kazerne Dossin / Jewish Museum of Deportation and Resistance in Mechelen (Belgium) of project “Give Them a Face”.

4-Life | Miracles•Media | 20240420

Last night, 81 years ago, the night of April 19-20, 1943, the 20th train convoy departed the Dossin barracks (Kazerne Dossin) in Mechelen (Belgium) with 33 cattle cars crammed with 1631 Jewish men, women and children for Auschwitz.

Half an hour after the departure of this Transport XX three young men from Brussels, Youra Livschitz, Jean Franklemon and Robert Maistriau stopped the train between Boortmeerbeek and Haacht, opened one of the cars and liberated 17 prisoners.

Yesterday , April 19, 2024, the memorial ‘4-Life’ was inaugurated in Korbeek-Lo with a speech by the initiator, researcher, Jo Peeters — curator of the nearby Museum House of the Belgian-French Resistance — on the history of the second attack later that night at Korbeek-Lo, 81 years ago .

More at Miracles site…
https://miracles.media/2024/04/20/4-life-20240420/