Holocaust trains
Encyclopedia
Transport
Transport or transportation is the movement of people, cattle, animals and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, rail, road, water, cable, pipeline, and space. The field can be divided into infrastructure, vehicles, and operations...
s run by German Nazis
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
and their collaborators
Collaboration during World War II
Within nations occupied by the Axis Powers, some citizens, driven by nationalism, ethnic hatred, anti-communism, anti-Semitism or opportunism, knowingly engaged in collaboration with the Axis Powers during World War II...
to forcibly deport
Deportation
Deportation means the expulsion of a person or group of people from a place or country. Today it often refers to the expulsion of foreign nationals whereas the expulsion of nationals is called banishment, exile, or penal transportation...
interned Jews
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
and other victims of the Holocaust
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
to the German Nazi concentration and extermination camps.
Modern historians suggested that without the mass transportation of the railways, the scale of the Final Solution
Final Solution
The Final Solution was Nazi Germany's plan and execution of the systematic genocide of European Jews during World War II, resulting in the most deadly phase of the Holocaust...
would not have been possible.
Pre-war
Following the unsuccessful Évian ConferenceEvian Conference
The Évian Conference was convened at the initiative of US President Franklin D. Roosevelt in July 1938 to discuss the issue of increasing numbers of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution. For eight days, from July 6 to July 13, representatives from 31 countries met at Évian-les-Bains, France...
, in late 1938 at the invitation of a friend in the British Embassy in Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
, Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
, 30 year old clerk to the London Stock Exchange
London Stock Exchange
The London Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located in the City of London within the United Kingdom. , the Exchange had a market capitalisation of US$3.7495 trillion, making it the fourth-largest stock exchange in the world by this measurement...
Nicholas Winton
Nicholas Winton
Sir Nicholas George Winton, MBE is a British humanitarian who organised the rescue of 669 mostly Jewish children from German-occupied Czechoslovakia on the eve of the Second World War in an operation later known as the Czech Kindertransport. Winton found homes for them and arranged for their safe...
visited one of the rapidly expanding refugee camps for those fleeing the Nazis. At the Embassy's request, he set up an office at a dining room table in his hotel in Wenceslas Square, where he arranged train transport for children to Britain. On return to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, the British Government agreed to the shipment of the children on the conditions were that Winton had to pay the cost of the transport (arranged via Czech travel agency Cedok), pay a £50 bond, and arrange a foster family
Foster care
Foster care is the term used for a system in which a minor who has been made a ward is placed in the private home of a state certified caregiver referred to as a "foster parent"....
—at the time when few of the affected families could afford the cost.
In 18 months, Winton managed to arrange for 669 children to get out on eight trains, Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
to London (a small group of 15 were flown out via Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
). The ninth and biggest train was to leave Prague on 3 September 1939 — the day Britain entered World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. The train never left the station, and none of the 250 children on board were seen again. During the war, 15,000 Czech children were killed.
The role of the railway in the Final Solution
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
, the trains were used differently:
- After economic discrimination and separation, trains were used to concentrate the populations, either in ghettoGhettoA ghetto is a section of a city predominantly occupied by a group who live there, especially because of social, economic, or legal issues.The term was originally used in Venice to describe the area where Jews were compelled to live. The term now refers to an overcrowded urban area often associated...
s, or—more often—to transport them to forced labourUnfree labourUnfree labour includes all forms of slavery as well as all other related institutions .-Payment for unfree labour:If payment occurs, it may be in one or more of the following forms:...
or concentration camps - After concentration within ghettos, to transport the inmates to death camps
The scale of the extermination of members of groups targeted in the Final Solution
Final Solution
The Final Solution was Nazi Germany's plan and execution of the systematic genocide of European Jews during World War II, resulting in the most deadly phase of the Holocaust...
was therefore only dependent on two factors:
- The capacity of the death camps to murder victims and process bodies
- The capacity of the railways to transport the condemned from the ghettos to the death camps
The most modern accurate numbers on the scale of the Final Solution still rely today partly on shipping records of the German railways.
The advantage of using trains
To implement the Final Solution, the Nazis needed an efficient system for mass extermination. Although trains took valuable track space away, they sped up the scale and duration over which the extermination needed to take place. The enclosed nature of the railway wagons used also reduced the number and skill of troops required to transport the Jews, and allowed the Nazis to build and operate more efficient death camps to a larger scale, rather than wasting valuable production resources on bullets. Many of the Jews killed were from Eastern Europe where there were many trains that had already transported military goods to the Russian front, and would have been empty on their return back to Germany were it not for the human cargo bound for the Holocaust.There is "no word about those who committed the crimes", Hans-Rüdiger Minow, a spokesman for the Train of Commemoration, told The Jerusalem Post. He said 200,000 train employees were involved in the deportations and "10,000 to 20,000 were responsible for mass murders", but were never prosecuted.
Scale of the need for mass transportation
Wannsee Conference
The Wannsee Conference was a meeting of senior officials of the Nazi German regime, held in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee on 20 January 1942. The purpose of the conference was to inform administrative leaders of Departments responsible for various policies relating to Jews, that Reinhard Heydrich...
, the Nazis began to murder the Jews in large numbers. The mobile extermination squads
Einsatzgruppen
Einsatzgruppen were SS paramilitary death squads that were responsible for mass killings, typically by shooting, of Jews in particular, but also significant numbers of other population groups and political categories...
were already conducting mass shootings of Jews in the areas of the occupied Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
territories since 1941, and now Jews were either deported to then-empty ghettos including Riga
Riga Ghetto
The Riga Ghetto was a small area in Maskavas Forštate, neighborhood of Riga, Latvia, designated by the Nazis where Jews from Latvia, and later from Germany, were forced to live during World War II. On October 25, 1941, the Nazis relocated all Jews from Riga and the vicinity to the ghetto while the...
, or to the death camps of Operation Reinhard
Operation Reinhard
Operation Reinhard was the code name given to the Nazi plan to murder Polish Jews in the General Government, and marked the most deadly phase of the Holocaust, the use of extermination camps...
: Treblinka
Treblinka extermination camp
Treblinka was a Nazi extermination camp in occupied Poland during World War II near the village of Treblinka in the modern-day Masovian Voivodeship of Poland. The camp, which was constructed as part of Operation Reinhard, operated between and ,. During this time, approximately 850,000 men, women...
, Belzec and Sobibór
Sobibór extermination camp
Sobibor was a Nazi German extermination camp located on the outskirts of the town of Sobibór, Lublin Voivodeship of occupied Poland as part of Operation Reinhard; the official German name was SS-Sonderkommando Sobibor...
.
At Wannsee, the SS
Schutzstaffel
The Schutzstaffel |Sig runes]]) was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Built upon the Nazi ideology, the SS under Heinrich Himmler's command was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity during World War II...
estimated that the "Final Solution" would ultimately annihilate 11 million European Jews; Nazi planners envisioned the inclusion of Jews living in neutral or non-occupied countries such as Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
, Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
, Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
, and the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
. Deportations on this scale required the coordination of numerous German government ministries and state organisations, including the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA), the Transport Ministry, and the Foreign Office. The RSHA coordinated and directed the deportations; the Transport Ministry organised train schedules; and the Foreign Office negotiated with German-allied states about handing over their Jews.
Jews from Germany and German-occupied Europe were deported by rail to the extermination camps in occupied Poland
General Government
The General Government was an area of Second Republic of Poland under Nazi German rule during World War II; designated as a separate region of the Third Reich between 1939–1945...
, where they were systematically murdered. The Nazis disguised the Final Solution by referring to these deportations as "resettlement to the east". The victims were told they were being taken to labour camps, but in reality, from 1942, deportation for most Jews meant transit to extermination camps. During a telephone conversation in late 1942, Hitler's private secretary Martin Bormann
Martin Bormann
Martin Ludwig Bormann was a prominent Nazi official. He became head of the Party Chancellery and private secretary to Adolf Hitler...
admonished Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler was Reichsführer of the SS, a military commander, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. As Chief of the German Police and the Minister of the Interior from 1943, Himmler oversaw all internal and external police and security forces, including the Gestapo...
, who was informing him that 50,000 Jews were already exterminated in a concentration camp in Poland. Bormann screamed: "They were not exterminated, only evacuated, evacuated, evacuated!", and slammed down the phone.
The journey
The trains consisted of formations of either third class passenger carriages, but mainly freight cars or cattle car
Stock car (rail)
In railroad terminology, a stock car or cattle wagon is a type of rolling stock used for carrying livestock to market...
s—the latter were packed, according to SS regulations, with 50, but sometimes up to 150 occupants. No food or water was provided, while the freight cars were only provided with a bucket latrine
Latrine
A latrine is a communal facility containing one or more commonly many toilets which may be simple pit toilets or in the case of the United States Armed Forces any toilet including modern flush toilets...
. A small barred window provided irregular ventilation, which sometimes resulted in deaths from either suffocation or the exposure to the elements.
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"—sometimes for days. At other times, the trains had to wait for more important military trains to pass. An average transport took about four and a half days. The longest transport of the war, from Corfu
Corfu
Corfu is a Greek island in the Ionian Sea. It is the second largest of the Ionian Islands, and, including its small satellite islands, forms the edge of the northwestern frontier of Greece. The island is part of the Corfu regional unit, and is administered as a single municipality. The...
, took 18 days. When the train got to the camps and the doors were opened, everyone was already dead. The armed guards shot anyone trying to escape.
Due to cramped conditions, many deportees died in transit. On 18 August 1940, Waffenn SS officer Kurt Gerstein
Kurt Gerstein
Kurt Gerstein was a German SS officer and member of the Institute for Hygiene of the Waffen-SS. He witnessed mass murders in the Nazi extermination camps Belzec and Treblinka...
later wrote in the Gerstein Report
Gerstein Report
The Gerstein Report was written by Kurt Gerstein, an Obersturmführer of the Waffen-SS in 1945 who rose to become the Head of Technical Disinfection Services of the SS. In that capacity he witnessed in August 1942 the gassing of some 3,000 Jews in the extermination camp of Belzec...
, that he had witnessed at Belzec: (the arrival of) "45 wagons with 6,700 people of whom 1,450 were already dead on arrival." To avoid contamination between loads, at times the floor of the freight cars had a layer of quick lime
Calcium oxide
Calcium oxide , commonly known as quicklime or burnt lime, is a widely used chemical compound. It is a white, caustic, alkaline crystalline solid at room temperature....
, which burned the feet of the human cargo.
Once alighted, the remaining passengers were split into two groups. The old, the young, the sick, and the infirm were sent immediately to be killed, initially in gassing vans and later in the gas chambers. The Gerstein Report states:
The rest were to put to work, frequently in the harshest conditions, which included the burial of victims in mass graves.
The calculations
The standard accommodation was a 10 metre long cattle freight wagon
Stock car (rail)
In railroad terminology, a stock car or cattle wagon is a type of rolling stock used for carrying livestock to market...
, although third class passenger carriages were also used where the SS wanted to keep up the "resettlement to work in the East" myth, particularly in the Netherlands and Belgium.
The standard SS manual covered such trains, suggesting a resultant loading ration per train of:
- 50 people in a freight car × 50 cars = 2,500 people in each train.
Since normally the trains were loaded to 150 to 200% capacity, this results in the following:
- 100 people in a freight car × 50 cars = 5,000 people in each train
Einsatzgruppen
Einsatzgruppen were SS paramilitary death squads that were responsible for mass killings, typically by shooting, of Jews in particular, but also significant numbers of other population groups and political categories...
.
In total, over 1,600 trains were organised by the German Transport Ministry, and logged mainly by the Polish state railway company due to the majority of death camps being located in Poland. Between 1941 and December 1944, the official date of closing of the Auschwitz-Birkenau complex, the transport/arrival timetable was of 1.5 trains per day:
- 50 freight cars × 50 prisoners per freight car × 1.5 trains/day × 1,066 days = 4,000,000 prisoners
On 20 January 1943, Himmler
Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler was Reichsführer of the SS, a military commander, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. As Chief of the German Police and the Minister of the Interior from 1943, Himmler oversaw all internal and external police and security forces, including the Gestapo...
sent a letter to Reich Minister of Transport, Julius Dorpmüller
Julius Dorpmüller
Julius Heinrich Dorpmueller was general manager of Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft from 1926-45 and the German Reich Transport Minister from 1937-45.- Life :...
: "need your help and support. If I am to wind things up quickly, I MUST HAVE MORE TRAINS."
Payment
Most of the Jews were forced to pay for their own transportation, particularly where passenger carriages were used. This payment came in the form of direct money paid to the SS, in light of the "resettlement to work in the East" myth. Charged in the ghettos for accommodation, the Jews paid for a full one-way ticket, while children under 10–12 years of age paid half price. Those who were running out of money in the ghetto were shipped to the East first, while those with some supplies of gold and cash were shipped last.The SS also paid the German Transport Authority to pay the German Railways to transport Jews. The Reichsbahn
Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft
The Deutsche Reichsbahn – was the name of the German national railway created from the railways of the individual states of the German Empire following the end of World War I....
was paid the equivalent of a third class train ticket for every prisoner transported to the final destination:
- 0.5 pfennig × 8,000,000 prisoners × 600 km (pro media of voyage length) = 240 million ReichmarksGerman reichsmarkThe Reichsmark was the currency in Germany from 1924 until June 20, 1948. The Reichsmark was subdivided into 100 Reichspfennig.-History:...
The Reichsbahn pocketed both this money and their share, after the SS fees, of the money paid by the transported.
Variations per country
The characteristics of organized concentration and transportation of victims of the Holocaust varied by country.Belgium
The BelgianBelgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
response to the Final Solution effectively came in three parts: pre-war; occupation; and retreat. But at the end of the war, while many of the ex-patriate Jews who had sought refuge in Belgium before the war had been deported, only 6% of the native Belgian Jews had been taken from their country as part of the Final Solution.
When Germany annexed Austria in the Anschluss
Anschluss
The Anschluss , also known as the ', was the occupation and annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938....
in March 1938, and following the unsuccessful Évian Conference
Evian Conference
The Évian Conference was convened at the initiative of US President Franklin D. Roosevelt in July 1938 to discuss the issue of increasing numbers of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution. For eight days, from July 6 to July 13, representatives from 31 countries met at Évian-les-Bains, France...
of June 1938, Belgium had in excess of 43,000 refugees within its borders, out of a total of 85,000 Jews within the whole country. The government ordered the Belgian Embassy in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
to stop issuing entry visas, and King Leopold III directly ordered the head of the Belgian State Security Service
Belgian State Security Service
The Belgian State Security Service, known in Dutch as Veiligheid van de Staat, or Staatsveiligheid , and in French as Sûreté de l'État , is a Belgian intelligence agency...
Robert de Foy
Robert de Foy
Robert Herman Alfred de Foy was a Belgian magistrate, and head of the Belgian State Security Service, before and after the Second World War.-Personal life:...
to draw up lists of "suspect Belgians and foreigners".
After German troops invaded Belgium on 10 May 1940, Gerd von Rundstedt
Gerd von Rundstedt
Karl Rudolf Gerd von Rundstedt was a Generalfeldmarschall of the German Army during World War II. He held some of the highest field commands in all phases of the war....
was in charge of domestic affairs in Belgium. Yet when the Germans on 28 October 1940 forced all Jews to register with the police, the total number registered only came to 42,000. After review of his lists by various collaborating national right-wing parties, de Foy was ordered by the Belgian authorities to round up the "unpatriotic" subjects. These Flemish-Nationalists, Communists, and non-Belgian citizens, most of them Jewish refugees
Jewish refugees
In the course of history, Jewish populations have been expelled or ostracised by various local authorities and have sought asylum from antisemitism numerous times...
from Germany and Poland. Hence de Foy's lists enabled Belgium to become the first Nazi country in occupied Western Europe to transport Jews to the Auschwitz.
These people were transported to France on so-called "phantom trains" the records for which were destroyed, but it is known that at least 3,000 were arrested under the plot in Antwerp alone. A phantom train on which Joris van Severen
Joris Van Severen
Joris Van Severen was a Belgian nationalist politician, ideologist and leader of the national-solidarist Verdinaso.-Early years:...
, leader of the pro-Belgian Fascist party was among 79 people deported is well recorded, as 21 people were killed by French soldiers at Abbeville
Abbeville
Abbeville is a commune in the Somme department in Picardie in northern France.-Location:Abbeville is located on the Somme River, from its modern mouth in the English Channel, and northwest of Amiens...
. Of the people deported on "phantom trains", most including the Belgian Jews were released by the Wehrmacht, the only Jews released by the Nazi German Army. 3,537 Jews holding German and Austrian passports were kept imprisoned at location, and were transported to Auschwitz for processing.
After this initial surge in repatriations and deportations, Hitler had chosen to put in place a military administration in Belgium, as opposed to a civilian administered government such as in the Netherlands. General Alexander von Falkenhausen
Alexander von Falkenhausen
Alexander Ernst Alfred Hermann Freiherr von Falkenhausen was a German general. He was the head of the military government of Belgium from 1940–44 during its occupation by Germany in World War II....
was placed in military control of Belgium and Northern France, with SS Gruppenführer Eggert Reeder
Eggert Reeder
SS-Gruppenführer Eggert Reeder was a German jurist, civil servant, and district President of several regions...
as his administrative deputy. Von Falkenhausen disliked the hardline Nazi position on the Jewish question, while King Leopold III had appointed Reeder Grand Cross of the Order of Leopold in the mid-1930s. Hence throughout his period of administration, Reeder co-operated with both von Falkenhausen and later Josef Grohé
Josef Grohé
Josef Grohé , German Nazi Party official, was born in Gemünden im Hunsrück as the son of a shopkeeper. He finished secondary school in 1919 and worked as a clerk in the hardware industry. He joined the Nazi Party in 1922, and was co-founder of the Nazi organization in Cologne and founder of its...
, together with the administrator of France Dr Werner Best
Werner Best
Dr. Werner Best was a German Nazi, jurist, police chief, SS-Obergruppenführer and Nazi Party leader from Darmstadt, Hesse. He studied law and in 1927 obtained his doctorate degree at Heidelberg...
, to try to apply the rules of the Hague Convention
Hague Conventions (1899 and 1907)
The Hague Conventions were two international treaties negotiated at international peace conferences at The Hague in the Netherlands: The First Hague Conference in 1899 and the Second Hague Conference in 1907...
in their region, often against the wishes and instructions of their Wermacht and SS superiors. In part they were aided by an on-going conflict between Himmler and Heydrich, which locally manifested itself as to who had what control over the still in place Belgian Police.
Reeder was directly responsible for the destruction of "Jewish influence" in the Belgian economy. But to ensure that all the Belgian people co-operated in the German occupation, Reeder negotiated an agreement to allow native Belgian Jews to remain in Belgium. Part of this was the non-enforcement of the Reich Main Security Office order for all Jews to be marked by wearing a yellow Star of David
Star of David
The Star of David, known in Hebrew as the Shield of David or Magen David is a generally recognized symbol of Jewish identity and Judaism.Its shape is that of a hexagram, the compound of two equilateral triangles...
at all times, until Helmut Knochen
Helmut Knochen
Helmut Knochen was the senior commander of the Sicherheitspolizei and Sicherheitsdienst in Paris during the Nazi occupation of France during the World War II.- Early life :...
's conference in Paris on 14 March 1942. Although economic implementation led to mass unemployment of Belgian Jewish workers, especially in the diamond
Diamond
In mineralogy, diamond is an allotrope of carbon, where the carbon atoms are arranged in a variation of the face-centered cubic crystal structure called a diamond lattice. Diamond is less stable than graphite, but the conversion rate from diamond to graphite is negligible at ambient conditions...
business, Reeder's efforts preserved full co-operation within Belgium and northern France during the German occupation. 2,250 of the unemployed Belgian Jews were sent to forced labour camps in Northern France (still under Reeder's control), in order to build the Atlantic Wall
Atlantic Wall
The Atlantic Wall was an extensive system of coastal fortifications built by Nazi Germany between 1942 and 1944 along the western coast of Europe as a defense against an anticipated Allied invasion of the mainland continent from Great Britain.-History:On March 23, 1942 Führer Directive Number 40...
for Organisation Todt
Organisation Todt
The Todt Organisation, was a Third Reich civil and military engineering group in Germany named after its founder, Fritz Todt, an engineer and senior Nazi figure...
.
Hence the Final Solution implementation in Belgium, centred on the Mechelen transit camp
Mechelen transit camp
The Mechelen transit camp, or officially SS-Sammellager Mecheln in German, was a detention and deportation camp established in the Dossin, the oldest casern at Mechelen, by the Nazi German occupier of Belgium...
chosen because it was the hub of the Belgian railway system, never hit the centrally defined targets. Adolf Eichmann
Adolf Eichmann
Adolf Otto Eichmann was a German Nazi and SS-Obersturmbannführer and one of the major organizers of the Holocaust...
had set Theodor Dannecker
Theodor Dannecker
Theodor Dannecker was an SS Hauptsturmführer and one of Adolf Eichmann's associates....
targets of deported Jews as follows, starting 13 July 1940: 15,000 from the Netherlands; 10,000 from Belgium; and 100,000 from France. On 5 December 1941, 83 Polish Jewish families were “repatriated" from Antwerp, while a larger number were sent in February–March 1942 to work in the textile factories of the Litzmannstadt ghetto. After that, stemming from orders issued post the Wannsee Conference, on 11 June 1942, SS Obersturnfuhrer Kurt Asche was ordered to deport 10,000 Jews from Belgium to Auschwitz, which he achieved by rounding-up non-Belgian Jews. Native-born Belgian Jews were first noticed in the Auschwitz death camp, after 998 arrived from Mechelen on 5 August 1942, of which 744 were admitted into the camp.
Cardinal (Catholicism)
A cardinal is a senior ecclesiastical official, usually an ordained bishop, and ecclesiastical prince of the Catholic Church. They are collectively known as the College of Cardinals, which as a body elects a new pope. The duties of the cardinals include attending the meetings of the College and...
Jozef-Ernest van Roey
Jozef-Ernest van Roey
Jozef-Ernest van Roey was a Belgian Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Mechelen from 1926 until his death, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1927.-Biography:...
, and the attempt was not repeated. It was hence reported as "impossible" by local SS units charged with meeting Final Solution targets to find enough stateless and foreign Jews to fill another Auschwitz transport after 20 September 1943, though 1,800 Jews of various privileged categories were taken in 1944 to camps including Theresienstadt and Bergen-Belsen
Bergen-Belsen concentration camp
Bergen-Belsen was a Nazi concentration camp in Lower Saxony in northwestern Germany, southwest of the town of Bergen near Celle...
.
After implementation of the Final Solution in Belgium, between August 1942 and July 1944, 28 trains transported more than 25,000 Jewish deportees to Auschwitz.
After the War, De Foy resumed his position as head of the Belgian secret police. While the records about the persecution of the Antwerp Jews are intact, the documents about French-speaking cities with large Jewish communities including Charleroi
Charleroi
Charleroi is a city and a municipality of Wallonia, located in the province of Hainaut, Belgium. , the total population of Charleroi was 201,593. The metropolitan area, including the outer commuter zone, covers an area of and had a total population of 522,522 as of 1 January 2008, ranking it as...
and Liège
Liège
Liège is a major city and municipality of Belgium located in the province of Liège, of which it is the economic capital, in Wallonia, the French-speaking region of Belgium....
, were claimed to have been purposely destroyed, even into the early 2000s. At least 171 Jews of Charleroi and 312 Jews from Liege are known to have died in the Holocaust.
Both von Falkenhausen and Reeder were tried in Belgium in 1951, but only tried for deportation of 25,000 Jews from Belgium, and not their deaths in the concentration camps. Both were found guilty and sentenced to 12years hard labour. But having already served their required one third sentence under Belgian law, on their return to West Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
, they were both immediately pardoned by Chancellor Konrad Adenauer
Konrad Adenauer
Konrad Hermann Joseph Adenauer was a German statesman. He was the chancellor of the West Germany from 1949 to 1963. He is widely recognised as a person who led his country from the ruins of World War II to a powerful and prosperous nation that had forged close relations with old enemies France,...
.
Bulgaria
On 22 February 1943 the Bulgarian government agreed to allow the Germans to deport 11,000 Jews. Overcrowding conditions existed in the 20 trains that transported them over four days, requiring each train to stop daily to dump the bodies of those who died during the past day.Czech Republic
Jews were interned and shipped from Theresienstadt, mainly to Birkenau.The last train left Theresienstadt for Birkenau on 28 October 1944 with 2,038 Jews, of which 1,589 were immediately gassed. Birkenau closed its gas chambers on 7 November 1944.
France
SNCFSNCF
The SNCF , is France's national state-owned railway company. SNCF operates the country's national rail services, including the TGV, France's high-speed rail network...
under the Vichy Government
Vichy France
Vichy France, Vichy Regime, or Vichy Government, are common terms used to describe the government of France that collaborated with the Axis powers from July 1940 to August 1944. This government succeeded the Third Republic and preceded the Provisional Government of the French Republic...
played its part in the Final Solution, however reluctantly. In total, the Vichy government helped in the deportation of 76,000 Jews, although this number varies depending on the account, to German extermination camps; only 2,500 survived the war.
During 16–17 July 1942 Vel' d'Hiv Roundup (rafle du Vel' d'Hiv), French police
Police
The police is a personification of the state designated to put in practice the enforced law, protect property and reduce civil disorder in civilian matters. Their powers include the legitimized use of force...
officers and SNCF officials rounded up 13,152 Jews (including 4,051 children who the Gestapo hadn't asked for), and imprisoned them in the Winter Velodrome
Vélodrome d'hiver
The Vélodrome d'Hiver , colloquially Vel' d'Hiv, was an indoor bicycle racing cycle track and stadium on rue Nélaton, not far from the Eiffel Tower in Paris. As well as track cycling, it was used for ice hockey, wrestling, boxing, roller-skating, circuses, spectaculars, and demonstrations...
in unhygienic conditions, from which they were led to Drancy internment camp
Drancy internment camp
The Drancy internment camp of Paris, France, was used to hold Jews who were later deported to the extermination camps. 65,000 Jews were deported from Drancy, of whom 63,000 were murdered including 6,000 children...
, run by Alois Brunner
Alois Brunner
Alois Brunner is an Austrian Nazi war criminal. Brunner was Adolf Eichmann's assistant, and Eichmann referred to Brunner as his "best man." As commander of the Drancy internment camp outside Paris from June 1943 to August 1944, Brunner is held responsible for sending some 140,000 European Jews to...
, and French constabulary police, and then to Birkenau.
During the January 1943 Battle of Marseille
Battle of Marseille
The Marseille´s Roundup took place in the Old Port of Marseille, under the Vichy regime, on 22, 23 and 24 January 1943. Assisted by the French police, which was directed by René Bousquet, the Nazis organized a raid to arrest Jewish people...
, the French police controlled the identity
Identity document
An identity document is any document which may be used to verify aspects of a person's personal identity. If issued in the form of a small, mostly standard-sized card, it is usually called an identity card...
of 40,000 people, and sent 2,000 inhabitants of Marseille to Birkenau.
Drancy
Drancy internment camp
The Drancy internment camp of Paris, France, was used to hold Jews who were later deported to the extermination camps. 65,000 Jews were deported from Drancy, of whom 63,000 were murdered including 6,000 children...
served as the transport hub for the Paris area, where by 3 February 1944, the 67th train had left for Birkenau. Vittel
Vittel
Vittel is a commune in the Vosges department in Lorraine in northeastern France.Mineral water is bottled and sold here by Nestlé Waters France, under the Vittel brand.-History:...
served the northeast. By 23 June 1943, 50,000 Jews had been be deported from France, an apparently slow pace not to the satisfaction of the Germans. The last train from France left Drancy on 31 July 1944 with over 300 children.
Greece
After the German occupation, an internment camp was set up in AthensAthens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
to transport Jews to another internment camp at Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki , historically also known as Thessalonica, Salonika or Salonica, is the second-largest city in Greece and the capital of the region of Central Macedonia as well as the capital of the Decentralized Administration of Macedonia and Thrace...
, which served as the collection point for Jews from the Greek Islands.
In total, between March and August 1943, over 40,000 Jews were deported from Greece to Auschwitz-Birkenau, including over 90% of Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki , historically also known as Thessalonica, Salonika or Salonica, is the second-largest city in Greece and the capital of the region of Central Macedonia as well as the capital of the Decentralized Administration of Macedonia and Thrace...
's 50,000 Jews. Of these, 5,000 Jews were deported from the regions of Thrace
Thrace
Thrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east...
and Macedonia
Macedonia (Greece)
Macedonia is a geographical and historical region of Greece in Southern Europe. Macedonia is the largest and second most populous Greek region...
in northern Greece to Treblinka, where they were immediately gassed upon arrival.
Hungary
Hungary resisted the deportation of Hungarian Jews to Germany, but did deport 100,000 Jews in former Romanian territory of TransylvaniaTransylvania
Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...
, and Jews from occupied Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
.
After Hitler launched Operation Margarethe
Operation Margarethe
During World War II, the Germans planned two discrete operations using the codename Margarethe.Operation Margarethe I was the occupation of Hungary by German forces on 19 March 1944. The Hungarian government was an ally of Nazi Germany, but had been discussing an armistice with the Allies...
in March 1944, the discussions between him and Miklós Horthy
Miklós Horthy
Miklós Horthy de Nagybánya was the Regent of the Kingdom of Hungary during the interwar years and throughout most of World War II, serving from 1 March 1920 to 15 October 1944. Horthy was styled "His Serene Highness the Regent of the Kingdom of Hungary" .Admiral Horthy was an officer of the...
came to a quick conclusion. On 29 April 1944 the first deportation to Birkenau took place, and the second on 30 April of 2,000 Jews. To allay fears of the remaining population estimated at 762,000, the SS had the deported write postcards to their family back home.
On 25 May, German representative General Edmund Veesenmayer
Edmund Veesenmayer
Edmund Veesenmayer was a German politician, officer and war criminal. He significantly contributed to The Holocaust in Hungary and Croatia...
reported that 138,870 Jews had been deported in the past 10 days; on 31 May he reported that 60,000 more had been deported in the last six days, while the total for the past 16 days stood at 204,312.
On 8 July 1944, due to international pressure by the Pope
Pope Pius XII
The Venerable Pope Pius XII , born Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli , reigned as Pope, head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of Vatican City State, from 2 March 1939 until his death in 1958....
, the King of Sweden
Gustaf V of Sweden
Gustaf V was King of Sweden from 1907. He was the eldest son of King Oscar II of Sweden and Sophia of Nassau, a half-sister of Adolphe, Grand Duke of Luxembourg...
, and the Red Cross
International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement
The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is an international humanitarian movement with approximately 97 million volunteers, members and staff worldwide which was founded to protect human life and health, to ensure respect for all human beings, and to prevent and alleviate human...
(all of whom had recently learned the extent of the Hungarian tragedy), the deportation of the Hungarian Jews stopped. In 70 days, 437,000 Hungarian Jews were deported—around 6,250 per day.
In October 1944, following the coup d'état
Coup d'état
A coup d'état state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, extrajudicial deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another body; either...
that put a Hungarist government in control, 50,000 of the remaining Jews were forced on a death march
Death march
A death march is a forced march of prisoners of war or other captives or deportees. Those marching must walk over long distances for an extremely long period of time and are not supplied with food or water...
to Germany, digging anti-tank ditches on the roads westwards. A further 25,000 were saved in an "international ghetto" under Swedish protection engineered by Charles Lutz and Raoul Wallenberg
Raoul Wallenberg
Raoul Wallenberg was a Swedish businessman, diplomat and humanitarian. He is widely celebrated for his successful efforts to rescue thousands of Jews in Nazi-occupied Hungary from the Holocaust, during the later stages of World War II...
. When the Soviet Army liberated Budapest on 17 January 1945, only 120,000 Hungarian Jews survived.
Italy
Benito MussoliniBenito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
resisted the deportation of Italian Jews to Germany.
After the Allied landings on mainland Italy, and the 8 September 1943 Armistice with Italy
Armistice with Italy
The Armistice with Italy was an armistice signed on September 3 and publicly declared on September 8, 1943, during World War II, between Italy and the Allied armed forces, who were then occupying the southern end of the country, entailing the capitulation of Italy...
, the Germans occupied northern Italy and shipped 8,000 Jews to Birkenau via mainly Austria, and also possibly via neutral Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
.
Between September 1943 and April 1944, at least 23,000 Italian soldiers were deported to work as slaves in German industry, while over 10,000 partisans were captured and deported during the same period to Birkenau. By 1944 there were over half a million Italians working for the Nazi war machine.
Netherlands
In the Netherlands, Jews were concentrated in AmsterdamAmsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
ghettos, before being moved for "resettlement in the East" to Westerbork, a transit camp in the north-east near the German border. Deportees from Amsterdam Muiderpoort station were unaware of their final destination or fate, as postcards were often thrown from moving trains.
Between July 1942 and September 1944, almost every Tuesday a train left for the concentration camps Auschwitz-Birkenau, Sobibór
Sobibór extermination camp
Sobibor was a Nazi German extermination camp located on the outskirts of the town of Sobibór, Lublin Voivodeship of occupied Poland as part of Operation Reinhard; the official German name was SS-Sonderkommando Sobibor...
, Bergen-Belsen and Theresienstadt. In the period from 1942 to 1945, a total of 107,000 people passed through the camp on a total of 93 outgoing trains: about 60,000 to Auschwitz and over 34,000 to Sobibor.
Only 5,200 of the deportees survived, most of them in Theresienstadt or Bergen-Belsen
Bergen-Belsen concentration camp
Bergen-Belsen was a Nazi concentration camp in Lower Saxony in northwestern Germany, southwest of the town of Bergen near Celle...
, or liberated in Westerbork. On 29 September 2005, Nederlandse Spoorwegen
Nederlandse Spoorwegen
Nederlandse Spoorwegen , or NS, is the principal passenger railway operator in the Netherlands.Its trains operate over the tracks of the Dutch national railinfrastructure, operated by ProRail, which was split off from NS in 2003...
apologised for its role in the deportation of Jews.
Poland
Polskie Koleje Panstwowe
is the dominant railway operator in Poland.The company was founded when the former state-owned operator was divided into several units based on the requirements laid down by the European Union...
, now in German possession, using IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
-supplied card-reading machines and railway software and made up 95% of IBM's business at the time.
The Warsaw Ghetto
Warsaw Ghetto
The Warsaw Ghetto was the largest of all Jewish Ghettos in Nazi-occupied Europe during World War II. It was established in the Polish capital between October and November 15, 1940, in the territory of General Government of the German-occupied Poland, with over 400,000 Jews from the vicinity...
was created by the German Nazis on 16 November 1940; eventually over 450,000 people cramped in an area meant for about 60,000. Shipments to the camps under Operation Reinhard
Operation Reinhard
Operation Reinhard was the code name given to the Nazi plan to murder Polish Jews in the General Government, and marked the most deadly phase of the Holocaust, the use of extermination camps...
were from the station at Umschlagplatz
Umschlagplatz
In the Holocaust, the Umschlagplatz in the Warsaw Ghetto was where Jews gathered for deportation to the Treblinka extermination camp.During the Grossaktion Warsaw, beginning on July 22, 1942, Jews were deported in crowded freight cars to Treblinka. On some days as many as 7,000 Jews were deported...
started on 22 July 1942 through to 12 September.
The Nazi record of Operation Reinhard lists the total number of killed, most of whom were transported by train, as follows:
| Location | Number and notes |
|---|---|
| Belzec | 246,922 deportees from within the General Government General Government The General Government was an area of Second Republic of Poland under Nazi German rule during World War II; designated as a separate region of the Third Reich between 1939–1945... area alone, and a total of 600,000. Deportations to Belzec ended in December 1942 |
| Majdanek | 300,000 |
| Sobibor | 140,000 from Lublin Lublin Lublin is the ninth largest city in Poland. It is the capital of Lublin Voivodeship with a population of 350,392 . Lublin is also the largest Polish city east of the Vistula river... , and 25,000 Jews from Lviv Lviv Lviv is a city in western Ukraine. The city is regarded as one of the main cultural centres of today's Ukraine and historically has also been a major Polish and Jewish cultural center, as Poles and Jews were the two main ethnicities of the city until the outbreak of World War II and the following... |
| Treblinka | 900,000 |
The Höfle Telegram
Höfle Telegram
The Höfle Telegram is a document discovered in 2000 among recently declassified World War II materials from the Public Record Office in Kew, England...
lists the number of arrivals to the camps through 1942 as 1,274,166, while the total killed is estimated at 2 million.
On 18 August 1943, the last train ever to be sent to Treblinka
Treblinka extermination camp
Treblinka was a Nazi extermination camp in occupied Poland during World War II near the village of Treblinka in the modern-day Masovian Voivodeship of Poland. The camp, which was constructed as part of Operation Reinhard, operated between and ,. During this time, approximately 850,000 men, women...
camp left Białystok Ghetto—all survivors were sent to the gas chambers, after which the camp closed down.
From 7 August 1944 the Nazis liquidated 68,000 Jews of the Łódź Ghetto, by then the largest remaining gathering of Jews in all of German occupied Europe. They were told by the SS that they were to be resettled; instead, over the next 23 days they were sent to Birkenau
Auschwitz concentration camp
Concentration camp Auschwitz was a network of Nazi concentration and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II...
by train at the rate of 2,500 per day, with some of the crippled selected by Josef Mengele
Josef Mengele
Josef Rudolf Mengele , also known as the Angel of Death was a German SS officer and a physician in the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. He earned doctorates in anthropology from Munich University and in medicine from Frankfurt University...
for his "medical experiments".
Romania
Caile Ferate Romane (Romanian Railways) have been involved in the transport of Jewish and Romani people to concentration camps in Romanian Old KingdomRomanian Old Kingdom
The Romanian Old Kingdom is a colloquial term referring to the territory covered by the first independent Romanian nation state, which was composed of the Danubian Principalities—Wallachia and Moldavia...
, Bessarabia
Bessarabia
Bessarabia is a historical term for the geographic region in Eastern Europe bounded by the Dniester River on the east and the Prut River on the west....
, northern Bukovina
Bukovina
Bukovina is a historical region on the northern slopes of the northeastern Carpathian Mountains and the adjoining plains.-Name:The name Bukovina came into official use in 1775 with the region's annexation from the Principality of Moldavia to the possessions of the Habsburg Monarchy, which became...
, and Transnistria
Transnistria
Transnistria is a breakaway territory located mostly on a strip of land between the Dniester River and the eastern Moldovan border to Ukraine...
. In a notable example, after the Iasi pogrom
Iasi pogrom
The Iaşi pogrom or Jassy pogrom of June 27, 1941 was one of the most violent pogroms in Jewish history, launched by governmental forces in the Romanian city of Iaşi against its Jewish population, resulting in the murder of at least 13,266 Jews, according to Romanian authorities.-Background:]During...
events, Jews were forcibly loaded onto freight cars with planks hammered in place over the windows and traveled for days in unimaginable conditions. Many died and were gravely affected by lack of air, blistering heat, lack of water, food or medical attention. These veritable death trains arrived to their destinations (Podul Ilioaiei and Calarasi) with only one-fifth of their passengers alive. No official apology was released yet by Caile Ferate Romane for their role in the Holocaust in Romania.
Scandinavia
In October 1942, 770 NorwegianNorway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
Jews were deported by boat to Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
and onwards by train to Auschwitz. The Danish resistance, on hearing a similar measure was to be attempted by the SS in Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
, assisted in a mass rescue of the Danish Jews
Rescue of the Danish Jews
The rescue of the Danish Jews occurred during Nazi Germany's occupation of Denmark during World War II. On October 1st 1943 Nazi leader Adolf Hitler ordered Danish Jews to be arrested and deported...
to neutral Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
.
Slovakia
On 9 September 1941, the parliament of "independent" Slovakia—a Nazi puppet state—ratified the Jewish Codex, a series of laws and regulations that stripped Slovakia's 80,000 Jews of their civil rights and all means of economic survival. The fascist Slovak leadership was so impatient to get rid of Jews that it paid the Nazis DM 500 in exchange for each expelled Jew and a promise that the deportees would never return to Slovakia. The decision by Slovakia to initiate and pay for the expulsion was unprecedented among the satellite states of Nazi Germany. They paid 40 millions RM to the SS.Switzerland
Brenner Pass
- Roadways :The motorway E45 leading from Innsbruck via Bolzano to Verona and Modena uses this pass, and is one of the most important north-south connections in Europe...
, based on the German-Italian-Swiss treaty of 1909 (to be denounced within ten years, by Article 374 of the 1919 Versailles Treaty), Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
was forced to allow Nazi Germany to ship certain non-strategic goods (specifically the treaty excluded soldiers and armaments) through the St. Gotthard Tunnel
Gotthard Rail Tunnel
The Gotthard Rail Tunnel, is a 15-kilometre long railway tunnel and forms the summit of the Gotthard Railway in Switzerland. It connects Göschenen with Airolo and was the first tunnel through the Gotthard massif...
.
There exists substantial evidence that these shipments included Italian forced labour workers and possibly shipments of Jews in 1944, during the Nazi occupation of northern Italy, when a German train passed through Switzerland every 10 minutes. The need for the tunnel was complicated by the British Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...
having bombed and disrupted services through the Brenner Pass, as well as a heavy snowfall in the winter of 1944/45.
Of 43 trains that could be tracked down by the 1996 Bergier Commission
Bergier commission
The Bergier commission in Bern was formed by the Swiss government on 12 December 1996. It is also known as the ICE ....
, 39 went via Austria (Brenner, Tarvisio
Tarvisio
Tarvisio is a town in the Province of Udine, in the northeastern part of the autonomous Friuli–Venezia Giulia region in Italy...
), one via France (Ventimiglia
Ventimiglia
Ventimiglia is a city and comune in Liguria, northern Italy, in the province of Imperia. It is located southwest of Genoa by rail, and 7 km from the French-Italian border, on the Gulf of Genoa, having a small harbour at the mouth of the Roia River, which divides the town into two parts...
-Nice
Nice
Nice is the fifth most populous city in France, after Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Toulouse, with a population of 348,721 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Nice extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of more than 955,000 on an area of...
). The commission could not find any evidence that the other three passed through Switzerland. It is possible that the train could have been carrying dissident
Dissident
A dissident, broadly defined, is a person who actively challenges an established doctrine, policy, or institution. When dissidents unite for a common cause they often effect a dissident movement....
s back from concentration camps. Started in 1944, some repatriation trains went through Switzerland officially, organised by the Red Cross
International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement
The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is an international humanitarian movement with approximately 97 million volunteers, members and staff worldwide which was founded to protect human life and health, to ensure respect for all human beings, and to prevent and alleviate human...
.
1944 onwards
After the Soviet Army began making severe inroads into the Nazi land war gains in the East, and the Allies landed in NormandyNormandy
Normandy is a geographical region corresponding to the former Duchy of Normandy. It is in France.The continental territory covers 30,627 km² and forms the preponderant part of Normandy and roughly 5% of the territory of France. It is divided for administrative purposes into two régions:...
in June, the number of trains and transported persons began to vary greatly.
By November 1944, with the closure of Birkenau and the advance of the Soviet Army, the death trains had ceased. Death marches also had the advantage of being able to use the forced labor to build defences.
Kastner train
In April 1944, for reasons that are still disputed, Nazi officials under the direction of SS officer Adolf EichmannAdolf Eichmann
Adolf Otto Eichmann was a German Nazi and SS-Obersturmbannführer and one of the major organizers of the Holocaust...
offered to sell the Zionist
Zionism
Zionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...
Aid and Rescue Committee
Aid and Rescue Committee
The Aid and Rescue Committee, or Va'adat Ha-Ezrah ve-ha-Hatzalah be-Budapesht was a small committee of Zionists based in Budapest in 1944-5, who were dedicated to helping Jews escape the Holocaust during the German occupation of Hungary.The main personalities of the Vaada were Dr...
(Vaada), of which Hungarian journalist and lawyer Rudolph Kastner was the de facto leader, exit visas for 600 Jews who held Palestinian immigration certificates, in exchange for 6.5 million pengő
Hungarian pengo
The pengő was the currency of Hungary between 1 January 1927, when it replaced the korona, and 31 July 1946, when it was replaced by the forint. The pengő was subdivided into 100 fillér...
(RM 4,000,000 or $1,600,000).
The negotiations between the SS and the Vaada were expanded to include more Jews, and the Vaada compiled a list of ten categories of Jews they wanted to rescue, a list that included Orthodox Jews, Zionists, prominent Jews, orphans, refugees, Revisionists, and "paying persons". The list also controversially included 388 people from Kastner's home town of Cluj
Cluj-Napoca
Cluj-Napoca , commonly known as Cluj, is the fourth most populous city in Romania and the seat of Cluj County in the northwestern part of the country. Geographically, it is roughly equidistant from Bucharest , Budapest and Belgrade...
.
Eventually the Kastner train
Kastner train
The Kastner train was a trainload of almost 1,684 Jews who, on June 30, 1944, escaped from Nazi-controlled Hungary, eventually arrived in Switzerland, while some 450,000 members of the Hungarian Jewish community were deported to the gas chambers at Auschwitz....
transported 1,684 Jews from Nazi-controlled Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
to Switzerland, in exchange for 6.5 million pengő
Hungarian pengo
The pengő was the currency of Hungary between 1 January 1927, when it replaced the korona, and 31 July 1946, when it was replaced by the forint. The pengő was subdivided into 100 fillér...
(RM 4,000,000 or $1,600,000). Although Kastner was later criticised for putting his own family on the train, Hansi Brand
Joel Brand
Joel Brand was a Hungarian sailor and odd-job man who became known for his role during the Holocaust in trying to save the Hungarian-Jewish community from deportation to the Auschwitz concentration camp....
, a member of the Vaada, testified at Eichmann's trial in Jerusalem in 1961 that Kastner had included his family to reassure the other passengers that the train was safe, and was not destined, as they feared, for Auschwitz.
1945
As the Soviet and Allied Armies made their final pushes, the Nazis transported some of the concentration camp survivors, either to other camps located further inside the collapsing Third Reich, or to border areas where they believed they could negotiate the release of captured Nazi Prisoners of War in return for "Exchange Jews" or those that were born outside the Nazi occupied territories.Many of the inmates were transported via the infamous Death Marches
Death marches (Holocaust)
The death marches refer to the forcible movement between Autumn 1944 and late April 1945 by Nazi Germany of thousands of prisoners from German concentration camps near the war front to camps inside Germany.-General:...
, but among other transports three trains left Bergen-Belsen in April 1945 bound for Theresienstadt—all were liberated.
The last recorded train is the one used to transport the women of the Flossenbürg March
Flossenbürg concentration camp
Konzentrationslager Flossenbürg was a Nazi concentration camp built in May 1938 by the Schutzstaffel Economic-Administrative Main Office at Flossenbürg, in the Oberpfalz region of Bavaria, Germany, near the border with Czechoslovakia. Until its liberation in April 1945, more than 96,000 prisoners...
, where for three days in March 1945 the remaining survivors were crammed into cattle cars to await further transport. Only 200 of the original 1000 women survived the entire trip to Bergen-Belsen.
Hungarian Gold Train
With the Soviet Army about 100 miles away from Hungary, on 7 March 1944, Hitler launched Operation MargaretheOperation Margarethe
During World War II, the Germans planned two discrete operations using the codename Margarethe.Operation Margarethe I was the occupation of Hungary by German forces on 19 March 1944. The Hungarian government was an ally of Nazi Germany, but had been discussing an armistice with the Allies...
—the invasion of Hungary. The fascist government of Hungary issued a decree against the Jewish population, ordering them to "deposit" their gems, their golden jewels ornamented with gems, and all valuables made of gold, with the authorities. The jewels and other valuables of 800,000 Hungarian Jews were seized by the fascist government.
With the approach of Soviet and Allied forces, the government of Ferenc Szálasi
Ferenc Szálasi
Ferenc Szálasi was the leader of the National Socialist Arrow Cross Party – Hungarist Movement, the "Leader of the Nation" , being both Head of State and Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Hungary's "Government of National Unity" for the final three months of Hungary's participation in World War II...
had these valuables laden on a train consisting of 44 cars. This train was seized in May 1945 by U.S. occupation troops in Austria. The Hungarian escort pushed the train into the tunnel near Boeckstein, while the Americans took possession at the railway station of Werfen
Werfen
Werfen is a market town in the St. Johann im Pongau district, in the Austrian state of Salzburg. It is located in the Pongau region, on the southern rim of the Berchtesgaden Alps in the valley of the Salzach river, about south of the city of Salzburg...
, where they found that the train also contained other valuables, e.g. oriental carpets, silver, furs, etc. While unloading the train to store the valuables, two lorries were seized in the French sector.
The goods were stored in two locations in Salzburg
Salzburg
-Population development:In 1935, the population significantly increased when Salzburg absorbed adjacent municipalities. After World War II, numerous refugees found a new home in the city. New residential space was created for American soldiers of the postwar Occupation, and could be used for...
, with the valuables in one location and paintings in another. After goods were given to furnish American families locating to Europe, the remainder were repatriated for sale in America, where, in June 1948 they were sold at Parke-Bernet Galleries in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
. To date, of the scheduled 1,176 paintings on the gold train originally stored by the U.S. Army, only one has been repatriated. On 30 September 2005, the U.S. Government reached agreement with the representatives of the Hungarian Jewish community to pay $25.5 million in compensation, with an additional $500k for the preservation of documents associated with the Gold Train, and to declassify any remaining documents related to the Gold Train.
Modern-day legacy
There are still signs of the mass transportation system employed by the Nazis in the "Final Solution", as well as controversies surrounding the history.Poland
The arrival point at Auschwitz is well preserved, although ceremonially cut-off from the main railway system. In 1988 at the UmschlagplatzUmschlagplatz
In the Holocaust, the Umschlagplatz in the Warsaw Ghetto was where Jews gathered for deportation to the Treblinka extermination camp.During the Grossaktion Warsaw, beginning on July 22, 1942, Jews were deported in crowded freight cars to Treblinka. On some days as many as 7,000 Jews were deported...
national monument, a stone sculpture resembling an open freight car was created by architect Hanna Szmalenberg and sculptor Wladyslaw Klamerus.
Germany
Federal Transport Minister Wolfgang TiefenseeWolfgang Tiefensee
Wolfgang Tiefensee is a German SPD politician. He was the Federal Minister for Transport, Building and Urban Development in the grand coalition cabinet led by Angela Merkel since November 22, 2005....
proposed an exhibition by artist Jan Philipp Reemtsma on the railways' role in the deportation of 11,000 Jewish children to their deaths in Nazi concentration and extermination camps during World War II. The exhibit would travel around the country to various train stations. It was initially opposed by Hartmut Mehdorn
Hartmut Mehdorn
Hartmut Mehdorn is a German manager and current in the supervisory board of Air Berlin, until May 2009: CEO of Deutsche Bahn AG.-Biography:...
, the head of Deutsche Bahn, because he considered the topic too serious for the proposed venue. However, Sonderzüge in den Tod
Sonderzüge in den Tod
Sonderzüge in den Tod is the title of a touring exhibition commemorating the deportation of hundreds and thousands of people by the former Reichsbahn to the concentration- and extermination camps. It was shown in France in 2006 and, in a different form, in Germany in 2008...
opened on 23 January 2008, a date that coincides with the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz in 1945.
France
In 2001, the Lipietz family, including European parliament member Alain LipietzAlain Lipietz
Alain Lipietz is a French engineer, economist and politician, a Member of the European Parliament, and a member of the French Green Party.-Education:...
, brought a case in the French legal system claiming compensation for loss of family members. In June 1944, their father Georges Lipietz (aged 21), and three other family members were taken to Drancy camp near Paris. While George was employed sorting deportees belongings, and hence later saved by the advancing Allies, the other three members of the family were transported to various camps by SNCF trains, and hence died. In June 2006, a French court ordered that SNCF must pay 61,000 euros ($81,300; £41,400) to the Lipietz family, but this was dismissed on appeal in 2007 due to a technicality.
In 2010, SNCF of France bid for a $45 million contract to consult and advise on construction of a new 800 miles (1,287.5 km) high-speed railway in California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. The state of California is preparing to pass a bill proposed by Bob Blumenfield
Bob Blumenfield
Robert J. Blumenfield Robert J. Blumenfield Robert J. Blumenfield (born September 13, 1967 is an American elected official. He currently represents the 40th district in the California State Assembly, encompassing the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles...
, which will require companies that want to help build or operate the rail system to reveal whether they transported victims to work, concentration, prisoner of war or extermination camps. In 2000, SNCF commissioned and released a study about its wartime operations, which concluded that because SNCF was taken over by the Nazis during the German occupation, French railway workers were acting under duress when they transported people to the camps. However, on a trip to the United States in November 2010, SNCF CEO Guillaume Pepy
Guillaume Pépy
Guillaume Pepy is a high-ranking French civil servant and is, since February 2008, president of SNCF, the French national rail authority. He is also Chairman of Eurostar and Deputy-Chairman of the Keolis Group.The President of the Republic appointed him to run the state-owned enterprise on 27...
issued an unprecedented statement of contrition, stating that SNCF expressed its "profound sorrow and regret" for the consequences of its actions.
Netherlands
Nederlandse SpoorwegenNederlandse Spoorwegen
Nederlandse Spoorwegen , or NS, is the principal passenger railway operator in the Netherlands.Its trains operate over the tracks of the Dutch national railinfrastructure, operated by ProRail, which was split off from NS in 2003...
used its 29 September 2005 apology for its role in the "Final Solution" to launch an equal opportunities and anti-Discrimination policy, in part to be monitored by the Dutch council of Jews.
Railway companies involved
- Deutsche ReichsbahnDeutsche ReichsbahnDeutsche Reichsbahn was the name of the following two companies:* Deutsche Reichsbahn, the German Imperial Railways during the Weimar Republic, the Third Reich and the immediate aftermath...
- NMBS/SNCBNMBS/SNCBThe National Railway Company of Belgium, known as the or the Société Nationale des Chemins de fer Belges is the Belgian national railway operator.It is usually referred to in English as "Belgian Railways" or the SNCB....
- Nederlandse SpoorwegenNederlandse SpoorwegenNederlandse Spoorwegen , or NS, is the principal passenger railway operator in the Netherlands.Its trains operate over the tracks of the Dutch national railinfrastructure, operated by ProRail, which was split off from NS in 2003...
- SNCFSNCFThe SNCF , is France's national state-owned railway company. SNCF operates the country's national rail services, including the TGV, France's high-speed rail network...
- CFRCaile Ferate RomâneCăile Ferate Române is the official designation of the state railway carrier of Romania. Romania has a railway network of of which are electrified and the total track length is . The network is significantly interconnected with other European railway networks, providing pan-European passenger...
, Căile Ferate Române