Berlin, Germany – Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Wednesday attended a wreath laying ceremony at the ‘Gleis 17’ (Platform 17) memorial at Grunewald railway station in Berlin.
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The memorial marks the platform where some 50,000 Jewish citizens were deported by train from the Grunewald station from Berlin to the Nazi concentration camps between 1941 and 1945.
There were about 1,000 Yidden who managed to hide in Berlin during World War Two, and survive. When the Russians liberated Berlin, there were Jewish Russian Army soldiers, who protected the surviving Jews of Berlin. Some of the SS troops actually tried to pretend that they were Jews, but were soon exposed, and dealt with. In addition, there were another 1,000 Jews who also hid in other areas of Germany during the war. The Russians showed Berlin no mercy, as the city was totally destroyed.