Image: http://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/images/PeaceTrain.gif

Click here for Wikipedia article entitled "Holocaust Train."

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 1946-1947 - Atom Train (England). "In 1946, former Manhattan Project scientist Sir Joseph Rotblat [1908-2005] took the lead in setting up the Atomic Scientists Association (ASA) in order to stimulate public debate. This included many leading scientists of the day. It adopted a non-political agenda with the aim of educating the public on the peaceful uses of radioactivity & nuclear power issues. A project was conceived, called 'The Atom Train' (image). The Churchill College Archive contains 'Memorandum on Atomic Energy Train Exhibition' dated 12th November, 1946. This document was co-authored by Rotblat & was 'designed to give the public the facts in a simple & attractive manner' & would use 'charts, diagrams & photographs & demonstrate some simple experiments.' It would of been instructive to use film shows, but it was decided that this 'would interfere with the steady flow of people.' Two railway coaches were identified to house the exhibition - one for the exhibits & the other for accommodation. The aim was to assemble the exhibition in Liverpool & be available in the spring of 1947 so as to travel around the UK, in the spring & summer months."


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 1947? - Freight car, Nationaal Gedenkteken Fort van Breendonk (Belgium). "In 1947 Fort Breendonk was declared to be a national memorial, recognising the suffering and cruelty that had been inflicted on the prisoners during World War II. The fort is now a well-preserved example of the prison camps operated by Nazi Germany during WW II."

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 1968? - Death Train, Jasenovac Memorial Site Museum, Jasenovac (Croatia).
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 1968 - Jasenovac Memorial Site Museum, Jasenovac (Croatia). "The Socialist Republic of Croatia adopted a new law on the Jasenovac Memorial Area in 1990, shortly before the first democratic elections in the country. The Jasenovac Memorial Museum was temporarily abandoned during the Yugoslav wars when it was taken over by the rebel Republic of Serb Krajina. In November 1991, Simo Brdar, a former associate director of the Memorial, stole the documentation from the museum & brought it to Bosnia & Herzegovina. Brdar kept the documents until 2001, when he transferred them to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, with the help of SFOR & the government of Republika Srpska. The museum reopened in November 2006 with a new exhibition designed by the Croatian architect, Helena Paver Njiric, & an Educational Center designed by the firm Produkcija. The museum features an interior of rubber-clad steel modules, video & projection screens, & glass cases displaying artifacts from the camp. Above the exhibition space, which is quite dark, is a field of glass panels inscribed with the names of the victims. Helena Njiric won the first prize of the 2006 Zagreb Architectural Salon for her work on the museum. The new exhibition is however seen as scandalous by some, notably Efraim Zuroff, due to the removal of the Ustaše killing instruments from the display & a possible intent to minimise the crimes committed there.

Date? - Reconstructed railway wagon, KZ-Gedenkstätte Neuengamme / Neuengamme Memorial Site, Jean-Dolidier-Weg 75, Bergedorf, Hamburg (Germany). "A first memorial was erected in 1953 on the site of the former camp garden. It was expanded in 1965, and a 'document house' was added in 1981. In 1989, the Hamburg Senate decided that the prisons erected in 1950 and 1970 on the camp site should be relocated. The older one was closed in 2003, the newer in 2006. In 2005 a new memorial site and museum were opened. Wehn was the rail car "reconstructed" and made part of the memorial?

Date? - Freight car, Denk-Mal Güterwagen, (Germany). "...steht vor der Gesamtschule Winterhude in Hamburg-Winterhude und zeigt eine Figurengruppe der Künstler POM[1] und Cristine Schell[2] und einen Güterwagen. Es soll an die Deportation zweier Lehrerinnen erinnern, die an der Hamburger Schule Meerweinstraße unterrichtet haben – stellvertretend für die Opfer des Nationalsozialismus. Die Installation ist durch die Initiative einer Schüler-Projektgruppe dieser Schule entstanden. Die gedeckten Güterwagen der Regelbauart wurden von der Deutschen Reichsbahn für den Vieh- und Stückguttransport, im Ausnahmefall aber auch bei der Deportation deutscher Juden verwendet." /// Google translation: "Think-time freight cars in front of the comprehensive school in Hamburg-Winterbourne Winterbourne and shows a group of figures the artist POM & Cristine Schell and a freight car. It commemorates the deportation of two teachers who have taught at the Hamburg School Meerwein street - representing the victims of National Socialism. The installation was created by the initiative of a student project group of the school. The covered wagons of the type normally used by the German railways for the cattle and general cargo transportation, in exceptional cases but also in the deportation of German Jews."

Date? - Freight car, Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp, Lower Saxony (Germany). "Ein Güterwagen des Typs, mit dem viele der Verschleppten in das Lager gebracht wurden." Google translation: "A freight car of the type with which many of the deportees were taken to the camp."


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1976 - Wagon-Témoin, Memorial to the Deportation, Drancy (France). "On 20 January 2005, arsonists set fire to some railroad freight cars in the former camp; a tract signed "Bin Laden" with an inverted swastika was found on the place. On 11 April 2009, a swastika was painted on the train car used for the deportation of Jews, a permanent exhibit. This action was condemned by the French Minister for the Interior, Michèle Alliot-Marie... Sculpture [right image] created by Israeli sculptor Shlomo Selinger to commemorate the French Jews imprisoned in the camp."


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1990 - Cattle car, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem (Israel). "Used by the Nazis to transport Jews to the camps. Given to Yad Vashem by the Polish authorities in 1990. Now part of a memorial designed by Moshe Safdie, it sits on a severed railroad track jutting out over the slope of a hill, suspended between heaven and earth."


June 19, 1991 - Railcar, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Washington DC (USA). Middle image shows the rail car being placed inside the museum on February 9, 1991.


1992 - Boxcar, Florida Holocaust Museum, St. Petersburg, Florida (USA). "This boxcar, which sits on original tracks from the Treblinka death camp (Poland), is one of only three in the United States. Moved into its new home in the Holocaust Center last year, it serves as a silent witness to the horrors of the Holocaust. About 100 to 120 prisoners were jammed into 30- by 8-foot freight cars. Many died before the train arrived at its destination. Times file photo (1997)." "Formerly known as the Holocaust Center, the museum moved to its current location in 1998 and officially changed to its current name in 1999. One of the largest Holocaust museums in the US, it houses an actual box car (from Gdynia, Poland) that transported victims of the Nazi regime to the concentration camps." Entry #226 in the "Peace Movement Directory" by James Richard Bennett (2001).

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1994? - El Paso Holocaust Museum & Study Center, El Paso, Texas (USA). "A memorial to the millions of people who were brutally murdered by Adolf Hilter and the Nazi Regime from 1933 to 1945... Lessons in the galleries include: Life in Europe before the Nazi Party; the Rise of the Nazi Party; the Use of Nazi Propaganda; Kristallnacht; Life in the Ghettos; Transportation by Railcars to the Camps; Life and Death in Nazi Concentration Camps; Liberation by the Allied Forces; the Righteous Among the Nations; a Memorial and Reflection Room; and a Gallery of El Paso Holocaust Survivors."


November 9, 2001 - Holocaust Maenmal der Kinder / Children's Holocaust Memorial, Whitwell Middle School, Whitwell, Marion County (near Chattanooga), Tennessee (USA). "An authentic German railcar filled with 11 million paper clips (6 million for murdered Jews & 5 million for Gypsies, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, and other groups). Dedicated on the anniversary of Kristallnacht. A sculpture designed by an artist from Ooltewah, Tennessee, stands next to the car, memorializing the 1.5 million children murdered by the Nazis and incorporating another 11 million paper clips."


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 April 2003 - Virginia Holocaust Museum, 2000 East Cary Street, Richmond, Virginia (USA). "Co-founded by Al Rosenbaum, Jay M. Ipson & Mark Fetter. Rosenbaum created the sculpture of the menorah used in the museum's logo... First exhibit recreates the atmosphere of the Dachau concentration camp. Visitors can be guided by the voice of executive director Jay M. Ipson who was six years old when his family was taken to Kovno Ghetto (Lithuania). Next exhibit is set in Frankfurt (Germany) and features a radio announcement of Kristallnacht. Subsequently visitors come to a ghetto exhibit that they can 'escape' from by crawling through a tunnel. Other exhibits include a cattle car used for transporting Jews, a shower/gas chamber, a crematory, an exhibition of the ship Exodus 1947 (the ship that helped launch the nation of Israel), a replica of the famous choral synagogue in Lithuania, and the only originally rebuilt Nuremberg courtroom.

March 5, 2006 - Railcar, Holocaust Museum Houston, Houston, Texas (USA). "One of the most popular exhibits at Holocaust Museum Houston is a 1942 World War II rail car of the type used to carry millions of Jews to their deaths. The railcar was formally dedicated and opened to the public during 10th Anniversary ceremonies at Holocaust Museum Houston on Sunday, March 5, 2006. The rare World War II relic, an internationally recognized symbol of evil and oppression, was relocated from Germany to Houston, Texas to be transformed into a monument to hope that humanity may one day be free of hatred, prejudice and discrimination."

February 13, 2007 - Holocaust Documentation & Education Center, Hollywood, Florida (USA). At an event attended by over 1,000 people, the center unveiled its most prominent acquisition, an early 20th century rail car, one of the type used by Nazis during the Holocaust to transport millions of Jews to concentration camps and to their untimely deaths. Holocaust Railcar Unvailing - Donation made by Alvin Malnik Holocaust Railcar Unvailing - Donation made by Alvin Malnik We are grateful to the State of Florida, Bobbi and Mel Dick, and to all the following individuals (Alvin and Nancy Malnik) for their tremendous efforts and support in helping to ensure that this powerful educational visual tool, which demonstrates the loss of dignity and freedom during the reign of the Nazi regime, will become part of the first South Florida Holocaust Museum."


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 May 16, 2007 - Boxcar, Holocaust Museum & Education Center of Southwest Florida, Naples, Florida (USA). "After a four-year international search, the museum acquired an authentic World War II-era railway boxcar. It came to the museum from Europe on May 16, 2007 and has undergone careful restoration. A rare artifact, it is an invaluable and mobile educational tool to support the Museum’s mission of promoting tolerance and understanding by teaching the history and lessons of the Holocaust. The search & acquisition of the boxcar was undertaken by Jack Nortman, a board member and Past President of the Museum. Mr. Nortman’s family was caught in the web of the Nazis in Eastern Europe. Both of his parents survived, and he was born in Landsberg, a displaced persons camp in Germany. The Boxcar Transportation & Education Project, a world’s first, ensures that an important piece of history will visit students right on their school campus. The boxcar serves as a traveling exhibit, the centerpiece in learning about the Holocaust."

April 19, 2009 - "On Sunday, April 19, 2009, a brand new Holocaust Museum and Education Center is opening to the public in Stokie, Illinois. The museum will include a permanent exhibit that begins with a film and then offers over 500 artifacts to help explain the Holocaust. Included in the exhibit is an old rail car that visitors can enter."

Future - Binario 21 / Track 21 Shoah Memorial, Central Station, Milan (Italy). "Italian veteran partisan Lodovico Nova stands in front of a train car at the "Track 21" memorial in Milan, the site where most of the deportation trains were boarded during the Holocaust." AP photo as published in the Washington Post on January 27, 2010.