• The Old Leipzig Railway Station is being transformed into a memorial and meeting site dedicated to the history of deportation under National Socialism in Saxony. This focus stems from the historical significance of the location. Jews from eastern Saxony, but also from central Saxony and central Germany, were deported directly from the Dresden-Neustadt freight station to concentration and extermination camps. This makes it not only a local place of remembrance, but also one of supraregional significance.
• The work of the memorial and meeting site is committed to preserving and communicating universal human rights and the democratic constitution of the state in Germany. It operates according to professional standards of science and education.
• The memorial and meeting site works in an inclusive, diversity-sensitive, and communication-oriented manner without compromising its scientific and cultural standards.
• The memorial establishes areas of work in accordance with the ICOM criteria for places of remembrance, i.e., it collects and researches the historical site and the history of deportation in Saxony and makes its findings available in exhibitions, educational programs, and outreach activities. It offers the public and the descendants of former victims of National Socialism a dignified place of mourning and remembrance.
• The meeting place is developing its own profile, which can be shaped by a variety of users and is open to social progress. It is a place of contemporary Jewish culture and the culture of other groups formerly persecuted under National Socialism. It provides them with visibility and representation. It promotes a critical examination of anti-Semitism and racism in the past and present, as well as the history of National Socialism’s rule and persecution.
• The Alter Leipziger Bahnhof sees itself as a hub within a landscape of initiatives which preserve the memory of the Holocaust. It operates according to the principles of cooperation and networking and offers a place for cultural work and creative activities. Modular rooms are being created that can be used for the work of the memorial and meeting site, creating synergies between the different focal points.
• In the ruins of the former railway roundhouse, an open educational space is being created on the history of transport, using the example of the Alter Leipziger Bahnhof. It places the history of deportation in a narrative of ambivalence of technology, mobility, and modernity.
• As a neighborhood hub, the Alter Leipziger Bahnhof will house a café and reading room with a bistro, which will offer culinary delights as well as modern spaces for individual and group work, access to media and digital services, and a mobile event stage.
• The Alter Leipziger Bahnhof will be run by a private income foundation in which the city of Dresden, the State of Saxony, and civil society will participate.

As a team, we were faced with the challenge of dealing with the three proposed ideas for the use of the site: remembrance, contemporary engagement, and transport history education, as well as the tensions and contradictions between them. Our aim was to take each idea seriously and incorporate it into a consistent overall concept.

Our starting point for working on the concept was the long-standing history of this site. However, in the discussions that have accompanied the considerations for developing a memorial site at the Alter Leipziger Bahnhof for years, it has become clear that the site’s function in the context of Nazi crimes touches on a painful gap that has existed in Dresden and Saxony for the descendants of those affected. While the significance of the site for the region’s transport history is already widely known and there is a dedicated location in the city for its museal presentation and communication in the form of the Transport Museum, there was and is no place in Saxony that commemorates the deportations under National Socialism and the people affected by them, provides knowledge about them, and communicates this knowledge in the context of historical and political education. In addition, social science research has revealed considerable gaps in knowledge about National Socialism, especially among young people. Our task was therefore to place a clear focus on the aspects of remembrance and education.

A second challenge was the sometimes conflicting historical narratives represented by the Alter Leipziger Bahnhof. While a presentation on transport history that does not omit National Socialism, but only mentions it, can appeal to all visitors, young and old, without reservation, a visit to a memorial site requires the creation of an appropriate setting that respects the visitors’ sense of reverence, offers space for emotions, accepts and accommodates feelings of affectedness, and still enables constructive learning. In order to do justice to these two modes of visit, it was necessary to separate the subjects spatially and assign them their own areas. At the same time, however, we have incorporated a thematic link based on the knowledge that the history of the deportations is ultimately part of transport history.

A third challenge was presented by the different ideas about the use of the site, which revealed deeper conflicts within Dresden’s city society and especially within the city’s pluralistic Jewish community about the right way to deal with the history of the Shoah. While some Jewish voices in Dresden called for space to be created in the Alter Leipziger Bahnhof to make Jewish life in the present tangible, other parts of the Jewish community strictly rejected this idea and communicated fears that the former deportation site could degenerate into a place of entertainment. In order to take these fears seriously and alleviate them, while at the same time providing space for cultural work, we developed a spatial concept that separates uses where necessary and offers alternative locations in the immediate vicinity for certain formats that contradict the reverence of remembrance and mourning.

The discussion about the appropriate use of the space was linked to the question of the extent to which a focus on Jewish encounters is appropriate for this historic site. The Alter Leipziger Bahnhof was not a Jewish site per se in its history. Unlike destroyed synagogues, repurposed Talmud schools, or forgotten Jewish cultural institutions, it is a place of perpetration, associated not only with deportations, but also with the arms industry and forced labor. In addition, the project team was aware that its significance in National Socialism remains a desideratum of historical research and that new insights into other groups of victims are possible. Even with regard to the deportations, its symbolic significance goes beyond the persecution of Jewish people and affects other groups as well. Taking the historical site seriously as the starting point for the concept therefore meant designing the meeting place to be inclusive and conceptually open. In this way, we want to propose a consistent institution that creates complementarity between the concerns of remembrance and encounter.

We combine these considerations with the awareness that important voices have not yet been heard in the discussion process to date. For example, the perspective of other groups persecuted by National Socialism for whom the history of the site is significant is missing. Likewise, the voices of the descendants of those directly deported from the Alter Leipziger Bahnhof have remained unheard to date. Even though we are convinced that we have developed key principles in the present concept, we consider it necessary to ensure that these voices are included during the implementation process.

Deviating from the original project name “Memorial site with an educational, communication, and cultural meeting place,” we refer to the concept presented here as a memorial and meeting site in order to highlight the independent components of the concept and sharpen their respective professional profiles. With the term “memorial site,” we emphasize our underlying definition of memorial sites according to the standards of the International Committee for Memorial Museums for Public Crimes (IC MEMO/ICOM) and the standards for museums, which include criteria that must be met for public financial support. We define a meeting place as a place where people come together with the aim of mutual exchange and joint activities. Within the framework of the concept, it pursues both educational policy objectives in relation to the historical site and cultural objectives in the sense of communicating pluralistic contemporary Jewish cultures and other cultures of former victim groups of National Socialism.

The authors would like to thank the numerous interview partners for their willingness to share their expertise with us and for the trust they placed in us, Koop Bremen for the great layout and graphic design, adasp architekten GmbH for their uncomplicated and prompt support in creating floor plans and visualizations, Solvejg Höppner for the administrative work involved in the implementation, and Dana Schlegelmilch for her excellent work in preparing the bid, her collaboration in conducting the interviews, and her other diverse contributions to the project.