Throughout the Second World War, Soltau station, located on the Heidebahn railway line, served as a transit and railway hub for transports to concentration camps like Bergen-Belsen and Neuengamme. By the end of the war, chaos reigned. Due to Allied air raids, the railway tracks were severely damaged by April 1945, causing transport trains—including those carrying prisoners en route to concentration camps—to come to a halt.

On April 11, prisoners from these stranded transports fled toward the town of Soltau. Some residents attempted to help them with food and clothing. At the same time, members of the SS and the local Hitler Youth organized a manhunt for the escaped prisoners. During the manhunt, more than a hundred refugees were tracked down and killed in and around Soltau. Most of the murders took place in Soltau itself.

A passage from the diary of Abel J. Herzberg (1893–1989), a former lawyer from Amsterdam and survivor of Westerbork and Bergen-Belsen, provides insight into these events. He writes:

"The two lieutenants and their young helpers in the Siberia region have also achieved success. Behind the Hitler Youth House, near the riding school, a whole group of 'striped' people was captured. Some were apprehended by frightened or well-meaning citizens, others were found by fanatical comrades. The Pimpfe and Hitler Youth proudly led the exhausted men in their 'criminal clothing' from the train station and elsewhere to the assembly point. As a group, they were driven through the town to receive their 'sentence' from the combat commander at the riding school. Then back to the youth house. A gravel pit was chosen as the grave. An angry mother from the neighboring Siberia forest, who drags her watching children inside in fear, curses at the two young men in lieutenant uniforms leading the action. The men are attentive and move deeper into the forest to carry out their murders."

Even in these chaotic final days of the Second World War, the ideological influence of the Nazi regime persisted. Members of the Hitler Youth were taught from an early age to obey, remain loyal to the Führer, and show allegiance to the regime. At the train station and the memorial site for the victims of the Nazi era in Soltau, reflection takes place on the tragic events of April 1945 and the role that education and peer pressure can play in a totalitarian society. What does solidarity mean in times of crisis? And how do you recognize the boundary between loyalty and complicity? The memorial site, just a few minutes' walk from the station, invites contemplation of the past and present.