Standing before you is one of the few remaining railroad boxcars used by the Nazis during the Holocaust to transport Jews and other prisoners to places like Auschwitz, Dachau, and Treblinka. For many of those involved, the seventy-six-year old railcar was the first “place of death” during the Holocaust.

The bare freight car often became a suffocation chamber for some of the people (100 or more at a time) who were squeezed into it. Those who survived the trip had to endure the journey under conditions of hunger and thirst, extreme overcrowding, and horrible sanitation. Frequently, the trains halted for hours or days at a time on side tracks or in stations along the way. Many of those deported, especially the elderly and children, died during the journey.

Our 15-ton freight car came to its present location from Gdania, Poland, after more than a year of painstaking negotiations by Walter Loebenberg, founder of the Florida Holocaust Museum.

“It was nearly impossible”, said Loebenberg, who lost four uncles and two aunts in the Holocaust. “The Polish government did not want these cars to come out, but with the help of some dedicated people we were able to bring the car to Florida.”

The railcar rests on original track from the Treblinka Killing Center.

At this time, there are only five or six other cars of this type in the United States. One is on display in Dallas, and the other exhibited at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. Due to the political unrest in Eastern Europe, combined with the natural deterioration process, it is unlikely that other railcars will leave Poland.

Exactly how many Jews and other prisoners perished in cars like #1130695-5 will forever remain a mystery. This relic of horrors past must never be allowed to fade from our memory. Today, this car stands in the Florida Holocaust Museum as a silent tribute to those who perished in the Holocaust.