Our Foundation with it’s Founder, few friends and people of ood will have angaged themselves in saving a historical boxcar used for carrying goods and livestock, that was built in Hungary in 1921. Only thanks to great effort and great funds we were able to obtain and move the historical cart.
It is a specific object, which carries a great load of historical and emotional value, that’s because among many others, boxcars of this type were used in the period between May and July 1944 for deportiation of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz – Birkenau. From the original, preserved namepate we know, that it was fabricated in Győr, Hungary, in the Rába Magyar Vagon- és Gépgyár factory.
After the invasion of German troops on Hungarian soil in 1944, actions have been undertaken to prepare Hungarian Jews for deportation. Hungarian authorities supervised the organization of the transports, and the whole operation was directed by Obersturmbannfuehrer SS Adolf Eichmann. He was responsible for organizing and supervising the exportation of Jews to the camps in the means of the „final resolution for Jewish issue” (Endloesung). Hungarian Jews were the biggest Jewish group deported to KL Auschwitz. In that period, the camp took in more than 430 thousands (430 000) of people.
By the preliminary inspection of the boxcar we cannot yet say if the said cart was used for transport of Hungarian Jews, but we also cannot say it was not. Due to the very bad state of the exhibit, our next effort will be preparing a program of conservator works to preserve it. Therefore, we address the institutions and people for who the idea of our venture is close to heart, for any help they can offer, that will help us speed up conservation of the cart and it’s future exhibition to public.
