Austria honors passengers on Nazi train to Dachau

Ceremony held at Westbahnhof, the station where the first trainload of Jews and political prisoners departed on April 1, 1938

9 April 2013, 11:04 am

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VIENNA (AP) — Austria’s government has paid its respects to the first passengers shipped by train from Vienna to the Dachau concentration camp by the Nazis 75 years ago.

A delegation led by Transport Minister Doris Bures placed a wreath Monday at Vienna’s Westbahnhof, the railway station where the first trainload of Jews and political prisoners departed for Dachau on April 1, 1938.

Germany’s annexation of Austria in 1938 was welcomed by the overwhelming majority of its population and many Austrians quickly became Hitler’s henchmen. Since the late 1970s, Austria’s governments have slowly moved from depicting the country as Hitler’s first victim to readily acknowledging its share of the guilt in Nazi atrocities and atoning for them.

The Nazis killed nearly 42,000 of the more than 200,000 inmates in Dachau, northwest of Munich.