German police have launched a probe after an arson attack at 'Platform 17', the Berlin memorial to deported Jews.

Police say a man set fire to the “Bucherboxx”, a public book box dedicated to Holocaust history next to the historic memorial at the Berlin Grunewald train station on Sunday.

The memorial marks the site from where tens of thousands of Jews were deported to concentration camps and death camps in Riga, Warsaw, Auschwitz and Theresienstadt from 1941 onwards.

The book box, from which any passer-by could borrow reading material related to the Holocaust, was dedicated in 2012. 

Sustainability activist Konrad Kutt came up with the idea of using decommissioned telephone booths as mini libraries some 13 years ago.

Witnesses said they saw a man placing a box inside the former telephone booth that served as the “street library,” and setting it on fire.

Gleis 17

Burned books lie in the burned-out book box near the 'Gleis 17' memorial (Photo: Alamy)

According to German news agency dpa, an antisemitic note was found on the site. Police have not revealed the content of the alleged note.

The books were almost all destroyed. Plans are under way to replace them.

The Orthodox Rabbinical Conference Germany said the act was despicable and should not be tolerated.

The conference said the act was aimed at all victims of the Holocaust, their surviving relatives, and descendants and at the "historical sense of responsibility of our society.”

The group claimed the act in Berlin showed the continuation of “an alarming trend” of the desecration of Holocaust memorials.

He said: "This time books from the memorial documenting the horror of Nazi terror were damaged.

“But the arsonists will not be able to deny or downplay the Holocaust, because the historical facts speak a clear, deeply sad language about the abysmal deeds people were willing to do and hopefully never will again."

The ORD Board of Directors is made up of Rabbis Avichai Apel from Frankfurt, Zsolt Balla from Leipzig and Yehuda Pushkin from Stuttgart.

Gleis 17

The Gleis 17 memorial in Berlin (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

As part of the memorial, inaugurated in January 1998, Platform 17 now has 186 plaques alongside the track detailing the departure date of each train, the number of Jews on board and their final destination.

The Berlin city website explains that the undergrowth that has sprouted around the tracks forms part of the memorial.

It says: "It is the symbol that no train on this track will ever leave this station again."