The latest on the Holocaust memorial and redevelopment plans for the Bubny train station
Images of the final plans for a Holocaust memorial at the Bubny train station show how a project dedicated to remembering the past can play a part in revitalizing a neighbourhood in the future.
Annual drumming events have been held at the Bubny train station in Holesovice by the Memorial of Silence organization for years, partly because in Czech, “bubny” means drums. In 2015, there was even a drumming event at the Czech Embassy in Washington DC, attended by former U.S. Secretary of State Madeline Albright, to coincide with the event in Prague.
But the drumming is not just for fun. Memorial of Silence organized the events to call attention to the train station’s history in connection to the Holocaust. For tens of thousands of Jews and other victims, the station served as a transit point to Nazi concentration camps and ghettos in WWII.
Now, after years of work and bureaucratic hurdles, final plans are in place to create a permanent memorial at the station. The mock-ups and visualizations of the plans show an updated facade and a new floor extension, while inside there will be exhibition spaces, an education centre for presentations and film screenings, and walls throughout the entire building made up of fifty thousand books representing the lives of deportees.
According to Memorial of Silence spokeswoman Klára Bobková, the idea for the project dates back to 2005, and the Bubny project to 2012, when director Pavel Štingl was working with the Lidice Memorial to the Holocaust in Central Bohemia.
“In 2005 he realized Prague is lacking a legitimate memorial dedicated to the Holocaust and Shoah, so that was the first impulse. The second impulse and realization started in 2012 when he basically discovered this abandoned train station, Bubny, in Prague 7. And he realized that could be the place for some kind of memorial. So in 2012 he started to organize discussions and exhibits and even theatre plays and concerts dedicated to the Holocaust and Shoah in this particular space.”
One of the projects dating back to that time period is the memorial art piece in front of the station now, a huge sculpture by the late Aleš Veselý called The Gate of Infinity, depicting train tracks going 20 meters up into the sky. Bobkova said it became obvious that the station would need to become a multifunctional venue.
“As time went by, the activities of the Memorial of Silence were much broader and broader and they needed more space. So he realized that it would be great if Prague could really have its own Holocaust memorial in a beautiful building connected with a public space, that would provide enough space for all the programs he wants to do there. Because it's not supposed to be only a permanent exhibition but also avenue for temp activities, temp exhibits, discussions, various audio-visual projects and programs, programs for schools, educational projects.”
According to the architects at the ARN studio in Hradec Králové, the design for the station’s redevelopment as a memorial is meant to reflect the silence that took place in Prague at the time of the deportations while also symbolizing a breaking of the silence today. Silence will be conveyed by its use of stone in the new, raised façade overshadowing blind entrances to building, while a breaking of the silence will be symbolized in a new floor extension on the original station where light will stream from overhead windows facing the sky above.
As Bobkova says, “It's not only a permanent memorial, not a monument or statue or something, but also a way to be able to speak against the silence. So it's not going to be only a permanent exhibit but also everyday something new, concerts, discussions ... everyday something new.”
Though the Gate of Infinity sculpture is a welcome new addition to the site, overall the Bubny train station is in a rundown state. Crumbling, faded plaster on the outside and an interior that looks untouched since the 1990s. Though only local trains now run through the station, the complex is massive, with 20 tracks and six platforms. It also effectively cuts Holesovice in half, and much of the area is an undeveloped brownfield and something of an eyesore.
But there are plans to redevelop the entire Bubny neighbourhood, and the restoration of the train station and the new memorial is just one part. Bubny will see a new high-speed railway, new residential buildings and business centres, as well as a new philharmonic concert hall located next to the train station. The mayor of Prague 7 even has plans to connect the two parts of Holesovice currently separated by the station with some kind of bridge or passageway across the whole area.
According to the latest public information, the Culture Ministry is providing CZK 5.6 million (230,000 euros) for the memorial's preparation and about CZK 10 million (410,000 euros) for other parts of the project.
But to the Memorial of Silence, an important part of redevelopment for the future is honouring the past of the Bubny train station. Memorial of Silence spokeswoman Klára Bobková:
“The point is to remind ourselves and the public, and everyone who comes to Prague, tourists, and people from all over the world that that is the place where the first transport from Prague took place, that's the place where the people had to gather and they took a train to nowhere. And I think it's the most important thing now, and forever ... to work on the fact that it won't happen again.”
