Berlin – Konrad Kutt is stunned: On Saturday, an arson attack that he describes as a “serious antisemitic attack” destroyed his “ BücherboXX am Gleis 17 ” on the forecourt of the Grunewald S-Bahn station.
The state security service of the Berlin State Criminal Police Office is investigating suspected anti-Jewish motives. Most of the burned books are literature about the persecution, deportation and murder of many Berlin Jews during the Nazi era.
According to the police, witnesses observed early in the morning between 4 and 5 a.m. how a man put a box in the book box and set it on fire. According to Konrad Kutt, the perpetrator left a “fuzzy but clear” right-wing extremist confession.
The disused phone booth was one of 19 that Kutt had redesigned in Berlin and in Poznan, Poland, for the free exchange of books. His “Sustainable Book BoXXes” project, which started 14 years ago, is considered to be groundbreaking for other initiatives that have converted telephone booths into street libraries. The spelling with the two capital letters XX is used solely by Kutt. In 2019 he received the Citizens’ Medal of the District of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf for his services .
Our picture shows him four years ago at the converted phone booth at Grunewald train station, which has now been destroyed.
© Cay Dobberke
The special feature of Grunewald station is its proximity to the ” Track 17 ” memorial. It commemorates the place where many thousands of Berlin Jews were deported to concentration and extermination camps during the Nazi era. The “BücherboXX” was also dedicated to this topic. In addition to literature, there was an audio device that could be used, for example, to listen to readings from books.
The lettering “Gleis 17” and Hebrew characters on the metal walls indicated the connection to the memorial. Whether and how the box can be replaced by a new one is not yet foreseeable.
