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German Railway Company Names Train After Anne Frank

Lawmaker calls the decision ‘tasteless,’ but the company sticks to its decision

by
Liel Leibovitz
October 31, 2017
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Earlier this year, the German railway giant Deutsche Bahn announced a contest to name its new trains after famous people worthy of commemoration. Proposals streamed in, and a jury of experts selected 25 names. These include Ludwig van Beethoven, Marlene Dietrich, and Thomas Mann. They also include Anne Frank.

The state-owned company is a successor of the Deutsche Reichsbahn, which transported millions of Jews to their deaths, so naming a train after a victim of the Nazis struck some as a very bad idea.

“Now DB is naming trains after victims of deportation by train,” tweeted Bild journalist Julian Reichelt, “starting with Anne Frank.”

Die @DB_Bahn benennt Züge jetzt nach Opfern der Deportation durch die Bahn und beginnt mit: Anne Frank. https://t.co/5RD7CVQsn6



— Julian Reichelt (@jreichelt) October 29, 2017

Conservative lawmaker Iris Eberl called the decision “tasteless,” and many other on German social media channels agreed.

Einen Zug “Anne Frank” zu nennen ist pietätlos. @CSU @jreichelt https://t.co/pMmQW9sExu



— Iris Eberl (@IrisEberl) October 29, 2017

But the company defended its decision. Anne Frank, said a spokesperson, Antje Neubauer, was a symbol of “peaceful co-existence of different cultures, which is more important than ever in times such as this.”

Liel Leibovitz is editor-at-large for Tablet Magazine and a host of its weekly culture podcast Unorthodox and daily Talmud podcast Take One. He is the editor of Zionism: The Tablet Guide.