Train car - symbol of the event

One of the symbols of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the German Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz will be a freight train car, which will be placed directly in front of the main gate of Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp.

Since 2009, this train car has stood in the middle of the unloading ramp at the former Birkenau camp, at the site where SS doctors conducted selections of deported Jews, directing most of them to their deaths in the gas chambers.

'In such freight train cars, German Nazis brought people here. These wagons connected ghettos and hiding places with the Place of Death,' said Dr. Piotr M. A. Cywiński, director of the Auschwitz Museum, in 2009.

'The emptiness of this ramp was artificial. Today, as we increasingly distance ourselves from the times of World War II, the imagination of young people struggles to comprehend what the hell of often multi-day transports in crowded wagons was like. The opportunity to display an authentic train car on the hitherto empty ramp in Birkenau is very important from the perspective of education at the original Memorial,' added Director Cywiński.

This train car originated from Germany. Between 1919-25, over 120,000 wagons of this type were manufactured. Many of them were used to deport people to Auschwitz, as confirmed by documents and archival photographs.

The train car is dedicated to the memory of about 420,000 Jews from Hungary who were deported to Auschwitz from May to July 1944. Its conservation was made possible thanks to financial support from Frank Lowy, whose father, Hugo, was killed in the camp.

The transport from Hungary, which included Hugo Lowy, arrived at the Birkenau ramp in May 1944. During the selection, he was deemed fit for work. When he refused to leave a package containing religious items — tefillin and a tallit — on the ramp, the SS beat him to death.