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Saves you the wreaths of flowers

In "Shoah", Claude Lanzmann's epochal documentary about the mass murder of the European Jews, there is a mute main role: the train. Again and again in the mo

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Saves you the wreaths of flowers

In "Shoah", Claude Lanzmann's epochal documentary about the mass murder of the European Jews, there is a mute main role: the train. Again and again in the more than nine hours of work tracks, you can hear the noise of locomotives, the camera moves slowly a distance, at the end of the entrance gate of Auschwitz-Birkenau is waiting. It is not a new finding, that the Holocaust would not have been possible without the use of the railway.

Amsterdam, a few weeks ago. In the third floor of a modern built apartment building in one of the older men swing open the front door. Medium blue Tweed jacket over a white turtleneck sweater, dark pants, and the shoes Shine. "Salo," he introduces himself with a firm handshake, the surname he omits.

football fans who are older, and could say his Name a little: In the late sixties and early seventies Salo Muller was considered to be something like the mascot of Ajax Amsterdam , which was playing the most beautiful football in the whole of Europe, as a every explains familiar with football. Muller was the physiotherapist. He massaged such famous legs like those of Johan Cruyff, and was himself almost as soon as the player: 100 meters, he managed to under eleven seconds. Someone from Ajax fell fouled on the lawn, was Salo Muller, always in the thick horn-rimmed glasses tracksuit, on the spot.

Salo Muller, a fighter for the victims of the deportations to the concentration camps. Photo:

Today, listen to when Playing games of Ajax Amsterdam in the stadium, sometimes from the opposing Fanblöcken a strange hiss, it's supposed to imitate the sound of inflowing gas. Especially the supporters of ADO Den Haag have blatant anti-Semitic chants, smear resistance of the monuments and memorials with anti-Semitic Slogans. Background: Before the war, ten to fifteen percent of all of Amsterdam's Jewish, it is a heavily Jewish-influenced city. So founded in 1900, the Association was considered a "Jewish club". "It is strange to hear the choirs," says Muller. ""Gas the Jews", "Jews get cancer". When I ran earlier on the square, they chanted: "Hey, you have I think you forget the Gassing". I never found it. But now with the increasingly anti-Semitic a darkening atmosphere in Europe, and now I get queasy when I hear the songs."

in 1972, left Salo Muller Ajax. A salary negotiation had gone into the pants of a wizard, you do not want to ask him, so he quit. That was a big thing in Holland, all the Newspapers reported. He then made a private physiotherapy practice, published scientific books, withdrew at some point from the professional life. Recently, Salo has become Muller 83.

in 1942 from parents

separated For four years, it is with the peace past. 2015 las Salo Muller in the newspaper that the French state railway SNCF Holocaust Survivors who were deported with the French railway in concentration and extermination camps, to pay compensation in a total amount of 60 million dollars. Not out of pure kindness, but out of economic interest: The SNCF wanted to get into the US-American route network, the Americans established the condition of indemnity payments. "Because I thought, hey," says Salo Muller, "the same should also be done in Holland. Dutch trains have transported people to death camps."

In may 1942, Salo Muller had seen his parents for the last Time. He was six years old. In Amsterdam, there had been a big RAID, they had taken many of the Jews and in a Theater, where you for the further transport his parents were collected, including. He himself had been during the RAID, still at school and was later brought also to the theatre, where he saw between hundreds of people, his parents. In his memoirs, Muller describes the Moment: "you stood on the stage. Many wept. I ran on stage and tried to climb up, but a soldier blocked my way. My parents waved and blew me kisses. A policeman came up, and bore me."

He survived, because there was in his story a couple of heroes. A man in a high function, wrote it on a list and saved him. Non-Jewish Dutch hidden him. After the war, he came to Relatives. He was nine years old, an insecure, timid Boy who had a habit of always being positive, friendly and nice to everyone. His Survival had from Strangers hanging out. To make it all right, he had to be forced. From him, the nice, sympathetic Salo Muller was.

answer from the Lost and Found

it was Only years later he learned what had happened with his parents. They were brought to Westerbork, the Germans established Jewish Assembly camp. From there, went on 9. February 1943 your train to Auschwitz-Birkenau. His mother was apparently sent directly to the gas chamber, her date of death is 12. February. The father killed on 30. April. A total of 93 trains deported Jews from Westerbork to the concentration and extermination camps in the East.

The Dutch railway has received several million guilders from the German occupiers for the transport of the Jews. A trip from the Netherlands to Auschwitz took three days. On the way there were neither water nor food nor sanitary facilities. Up to ten percent of the inmates died during the journey.

Salo Muller wrote on 17. March 2016 Spoorwegen his first letter to the railway company, Nederlandse, addressed to the CEO. He introduced himself, described his personal history. And then he wrote that the Dutch Railways to follow the example of France and also individuals compensation should pay.

He got an answer, but not from the CEO: The story was really very sad, and she regretted all this very much, but you do every year much to the General public, "wreaths of flowers, and so, in short: you're sorry everything is so awful, but you would pay nothing." Salo Muller wrote a second letter. "I wrote: Thank you very much for your efforts, but collective allowances are no use to anybody, let alone flower wreaths." The answer was approximately the same. His third letter, the Department of Lost and Found, probably Accidentally replied to then, because Muller had not lost his hat, or his phone, but his parents in a train.

in A television interview helps

Now it was Muller, and he was nice. He had researched that Roger van Boxtel, CEO of Dutch rail, which is also in the members Council of the Ajax Amsterdam sass. About his former employer, Muller came to Van Boxtels phone number and called him. He was friendly, but didn't know from nothing. He had forwarded the letters never. Muller asked for a Meeting. Van Boxtel said, but wanted to first read the letters and promised to respond. But he did not.

Finally, Muller called a friend who works in television. He gave in to the memorial of Westerbork, in an Interview he told that he haven't heard back from the rail. Hardly the contribution was sent, reported Van Boxtel. Now a date for a Meeting. Muller took his wife, whose parents had also been killed, deported. "It did everything you suffering terribly, but they would pay nothing." There was a second Meeting. Again the same statement. Salo Muller took a lawyer, and after the had been threatened with a court process, everything went very quickly. A further Meeting was agreed to, and hardly Muller, his lawyer and a camera crew in a Van Boxtels office, were these: "Salo, you've won the said. We will pay for it."

The decision was made at the end of November, convenes a four-member Commission, which decides who should get how much. It is established that both Survivors as well as their children should be considered.

Now a bit of a strange Situation. Two countries (France and the Netherlands), the companies brought to the German command of the Jews, with their respective track in a German-built death camps, to pay compensation to the victims. The Deutsche Bahn has compensated, however, never individuals. The legally sound Argument: The Deutsche Bahn AG is not the legal successor of the Reichsbahn; for the settlement of claims from earlier times, the, founded in 1994, the German Federal Railways, is responsible for the tasks of the state bundles, of which the competitors of Deutsche Bahn AG, relieved. That the Deutsche Bahn of compensation payments to individual victims is well known. The injustice was so big, so monstrous, that it was not right with money, says a railway spokesperson in the TV-documentation "file D – war heritage of the web" in the camera. You thought last year's calling as a sign of remembrance, a ICE "Anne Frank".

(editing Tamedia)

Created: 15.04.2019, 19:49 Uhr

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