Fotoeins Fotografie

“Well into the 1970s, the area around present-day Leon Zelman Park was the site of the Aspang Railway Station, which was built in 1880–1881 as a terminal for the regional Vienna-Aspang-Pitten rail line. Despite its relatively central location in the city’s 3rd district, the station served only regional rail traffic and was not very busy. These were likely reasons why after the “Anschluss” the Nazis chose this station for deportation transports.

Two transport trains departed in October 1939 with 1584 Jewish men deported to Nisko in the Lublin District of the General Governorate of occupied Poland as a failed attempt to create the Lublin reservation for expelled European Jews. Much larger deportations resumed from February 1941 to October 1942. 45451 Austrian-Jewish men and women were deported on a total of 45 transport trains to ghettos and extermination sites in (what are now) Czechia, Poland, Belarus, Lithuania, and Latvia.

In Vienna, the cynically-named Nazi ‘Zentralstelle für jüdische Auswanderung’ (Central Agency for Jewish Emigration) organized deportation efforts including forced captivity and assembly or collection points. Four internment stations were established in the city’s 2nd district where prisoners were abused and stripped of their possessions. For every transport, about one thousand people were driven to Aspang Station in uncovered trucks, in plain and open sight of the city’s population.

Of the 47035 Jewish men and women deported from Aspang Railway Station, only 1073 (2%) survived, according to the research by Austrian historian Jonny Moser, himself a survivor of the Holocaust/Shoah. In total, more than 65-thousand Austrian Jews fell victim; most of them began their road to their deaths at Aspang Station.”

•   Paraphrased from Kunst im öffentlichen Raum Wien (Art in public spaces Vienna).

After the war and Allied-occupation period, little was done to improve the station and its tracks. The station was closed in 1971 and the station building was demolished by 1977. The turn of the millennium provided momentum to both city and the national rail company for redevelopment of the area, including apartment blocks, green space, and a memorial. Today, the former railway station is Leon Zelman Park, named after Dr. Leon Zelman who established in 1980 the Jewish Welcome Service Vienna and led the organization until his passing in 2007. The inauguration of the deportation memorial occurred on 7 September 2017 with full opening to the public on the following day.

Mahnmal Aspangbahnhof
אנדרטת תחנת הרכבת אספאנג

“Aspang Railway Station – 47035 persons deported – 47 transports: 1939 and 1941–42 – 1073 survived.”

Mahnmal Aspangbahnhof (Aspang Railway Station Memorial), by artist duo PRINZpod, 2017.

Transports.

People.

2 rails and a crossing.

Concrete rails.

47035 deported.

1073 survived.

Concrete rails disappear in the distance.

“The City of Vienna set up a memorial to commemorate Jewish-Austrian men and women who were deported from Aspang Railway Station and subsequently murdered. The ‘Aspang Railway Station Memorial’ by Austrian artist duo PRINZpod consists of two 30-meter long concrete rails referring to railway tracks at the former station. The rails lead into a dark hollow concrete block, a symbol of death and oblivion.

PRINZpod (Brigitte Prinzgau, Wolfgang Podgorschek) have lived and worked in Vienna since 1984.”

•   Paraphrased from Kunst im öffentlichen Raum Wien (Art in public spaces Vienna).

Directions

Public transport with Wiener Linien: tram 71 or bus 77A, to stop “Kleistgasse.” Leon Zelman Park is a free and open public space.

I made all photos above with a Fujifilm X70 fixed-lens prime on 20 May 2022. Alle Fotoaufnahmen sind von Wasserzeichen versehen worden. This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-oLW.