Israeli President Isaac Herzog and German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier held an emotional memorial ceremony at Berlin’s Grunewald station, where tens of thousands of Jews were deported to Nazi death camps.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog and German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier stood side by side Monday at Platform 17 of the Grunewald train station, once a central departure point for the deportation of Berlin’s Jews during the Holocaust.
The two heads of state participated in a solemn ceremony honoring the memory of approximately 50,000 Jews who were forcibly transported from the site to concentration and extermination camps during World War II.
A minute of silence was observed as part of the memorial, underscoring the gravity of the location’s history. The presidents then placed a wreath at the foot of the monument erected at Platform 17, a space now dedicated to the memory of the lives lost.
Following the ceremony, the leaders visited an adjacent Jewish memorial created by Holocaust survivors. President Herzog delivered the traditional Jewish mourning prayer Kaddish, while the El Maleh Rachamim prayer for the souls of the departed was recited by Rabbi Yehuda Alkim Teichtal, head of the Chabad Jewish community in Berlin.
