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More than 350 of the Jews deported on Jan. 27, 1942 were from Gelsenkirchen, and others came from places like Recklinghausen, Bocholt, Bottrop, Castrop-Rauxel, Datteln, Dorsten, Gladbeck, Haltern, Herten, Lembeck, Marl, Lüdinghausen, Münster and Selm — all part of the Ruhr area in western Germany.

The Gladbeck Hostage Drama, as it is remembered in Germany, remains a scar on the nation's consciousness.

On 16 August 1988 Degowski and his accomplice, Hans-Jürgen Rösner, forced their way into a branch of Deutsche Bank in Gladbeck, a town in the industrial Ruhr area of what was then West Germany.

As a result of Gladbeck the German Press Council rewrote its guidelines to make explicit that it was not permissible for journalists to interview perpetrators while a crime was in progress.

"Gladbeck was a completely new situation for the police and, of course, also a completely new situation for the media," says Udo Röbel, who was then the 39-year-old deputy editor of a Cologne tabloid, the Express.