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End Of The Line – Auschwitz |
The Final Solution could not have happened without the railways, without the trains making the mass transport possible.
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Jews Being Deported |
The people were lulled into a false security. They were told that they were going to different places, better conditions, work camps, on and on and on.
Read an eyewitness account.
The transports were usually cattle cars. At times, the floor of the car had a layer of quick lime which burned the feet of the human cargo.
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Being Transported To Death Camps In Cattle Cars |
There was no water. There was no food. There was no toilet, no ventilation. Some boxcars had up to 150 people stuffed into them. It did not matter if it was summer, winter, boiling hot or freezing cold. And an average transport took about four and a half days.
Read a personal account.
Read a moving commentary on this.
Sometimes the Germans did not have enough cars to make it worth their while to do a major shipment of Jews to the camps, so the victims were stuck in a switching yard – "standing room only" – for two and a half days.
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Women Prisoners Inside A Train |
The longest transport of the war, from Corfu, took 18 days. When the train got to the camps and the doors were opened, everyone was already dead.
(26) Andrea , January 31, 2009
Interesting Commentaries
I found one person's comment to be interesting: why did Hitler only torture the Jews and not other people of different nationalties This is a false assumption. Many were persecuted in the Holocaust, whether based on nationality, appearance or supposed faults that Hitler decided to focus on. The Roma were among those persecuted and lets be realistic, it was because of their nationality, not because they were criminals or untouchable.
(25) Steve , January 14, 2009
The 20th Train
I urge you to read the story of the 20th train. It was the only time that a death camp transport train (from Mechelen, Belgium) was ambushed and people (between 200 and 300) rescued. Three men on bicycles carrying pliers, pistols, and a lamp covered with red paper to signal the train to stop carried out the operation. It should be made into a movie.
(24) Σ,ο,λ,ω,ν, Α,.Φ,α,σ,ι,α,ν,ο,ς,-Salonica , January 5, 2009
I was born in Salonica in 1946.My father was a distinguished med doctor with many Jewish people among his patients,being a close friend with many of them.I had my first vague experience of the Holocaust,in my early childhood,when I saw the "Number" on the arm of a family friend.I realized that something evil had happened but,as a child,didn t know,axactly what that was.I am absolutely conveinced that the total loss of OUR jewish friends,was a disaster for the city which CAN NEVER be repaired or forgotten.For myself,Holocaust is a nail in my heart until I die.
(23) komodo , December 25, 2008
The Rise of Evil
Hitler was able to attain power legally because he knew how to use the system. He promised the German people change, a better tomorrow and an opportunity to once again take their rightful place in the world. He stifled dissent through the use of force and terror. German Jews were thoroughly assimilated in German society and did not believe they would be singled out for destruction even though the evidence against that way of thinking was mounting. When Hitler invaded Poland, and later on the Baltic countries and the Ukraine he sent the Einsatzgruppen closely behind the Wermacht to conduct what we call today "ethnic cleansing" which means the shooting of Jews along with Poles, Slavs and Gypsies. Killing pits were filled from Eastern Poland to Western Russia with hundreds of thousands of Jews who were shot down, murdered, by the killing squads with help from local militia and even occasionally Waffen-SS and Wermacht troops. There was very little dissent among the troops who did the killing.It was only later, perhaps early in 1942, that death camps were set up to receive Jews for destruction. The notes from the Wannsee Conference held in January 1942 that survived the war showed that the Nazi's estimated 11 million Jews that were going to be destroyed, from Western Europe including England, Scotland and Ireland to Siberia. That was too great a number to be shot and a more "efficient" method of destruction had to be found. Trains and death camps filled the bill.
(22) JH Abeles , November 12, 2008
Personal Horror of "TRANSPORTS"
As a second-generation survivor, I cannot grapple with, cannot imagine, the horror of the transports. One thousand people were placed on each of these by force. Each car was way overloaded. Three of my four grandparents and my only aunt were taken by transport from Vienna to Sobibor and Maly Trostinets in 1942. My other grandfather had already, by then, been murdered in Buchenwald. When I recently in Sept 2008 visited Italy and inevitably rode trains on the European continent, I could not help but contemplate the suffering of my dear relatives, whom I never had the privilege to know, on other European trains 64 years earlier. When I was younger, I once stood for about 4 hours on a train from Boston to New York to get home from college one Thanksgiving. At that time I was not yet aware of the transports. Standing for 4 hours was unpleasant, believe me. How can I imagine standing for 96 hours (four days) or more? Without water? Without food? Without sanitary facilities? How can I imagine the murder of those who withstood the experience upon arrival at their destination? Who can imagine such things? The horror, the horror. Thi