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This Symbolic Railroad Car Should be Here
A memorial in the form of a railroad car has been symbolically unveiled next to the ramp, or unloading platform, at the site of the Nazi German Auschwitz II-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp. It is dedicated to the memory of the more than 400 thousand Hungarian Jews deported to Auschwitz by the Nazis between May and July 1944. The railroad car stands at the place where SS physicians carried out selection, sending the majority of the deported Jews to death in the gas chambers.
Financial support from Frank Lowy made the conservation of the historical railroad car possible. Lowy's father, Hugo, died in Auschwitz. “We now have a memorial railroad car symbolizing the suffering and deportation of the Jews of Hungary. My father was among them. He was brutally murdered immediately after arrival, a few meters from the place where we are standing. This is a very emotional moment, but for me it represents the closing of a certain stage. I was thirteen years old when I lost my father, and today I am eighty. In my opinion, the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum is doing a fantastic job of trying to preserve what remains, and of keeping the memory of those terrible events alive. I am truly grateful for this,” said Lowy.
About a hundred people attended the unveiling ceremony, including the former head rabbi of Israel, Meir Lau, the director of Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, Avner Shalev, members of Hugo Lowy’s immediate family, and senior directors of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum.
Avner Shalev feels that placing the authentic train car at the ramp is an exceptional and important event. “It seems natural that this symbolic railroad car should be here. It reminds every visitor of how important it is to remember that people were murdered not only here, that this was a plan that encompassed all of Europe. The train car is a symbol of this process, and everyone will be able to understand this. I wish to express my appreciation to the Museum director, Piotr Cywiński, for initiating this project,” said Shalev.
Those in attendance observed a moment of silence in remembrance of the victims of the air crash that took the lives of 96 people, including Polish President Lech Kaczyński.
See the video from the ceremony
See the video "65 years ago" about the deportations of Jews from Hungary
See the text An Original German Train Car at the Birkenau Ramp
The train car at the Auschwitz II-Birkenau was manufactured Germany before the war. The Die Schmiede company, which specializes in preserving items of importance for the history of technical culture, restored it in Germany under the supervision of specialists from the Museum. More than 120 thousand train cars of this type were produced between 1919 and 1925. Many of them were used to deport people to Auschwitz, as confirmed by records and photographs in the archives.
There are two more historical train cars at the so-called Altejudenrampe, the rail platform located between Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau. In 1942-44, that was the arrival point for trains full of deportees, until train tracks were constructed that led almost directly to the gas chambers in Birkenau. There are also historical train cars at Yad Vashemin Jerusalem, the Holocaust Museum in Washington, and the site of the Stutthof camp.
Hugo Lowy was deported from Hungary in a transport that arrived at the unloading platform in Birkenau in May 1944. During selection, he was classified as fit for labor. He was carrying a parcel containing ritual objects, his tefillin and tallit. When he refused to leave the bundle behind on the ramp, the SS men there beat him to death.
