Train

  • The Journey of No Return

    The above photograph is a rail track I pass over nearly every day. Yesterday, when I passed it, I had to think of all those who went on train journeys and never returned. The trains that travel over this rail track are comfortable, They have soft seats you can sit on, and some even have

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  •   Killing the Jews wasn’t enough for the Nazi regime. They also needed to be humiliated. and their deaths had to be profitable. Laws were introduced to remove them from any social interaction and then they were forcibly removed from their homes, with only one suitcase of possessions, all other valuables were sold or just

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  • A single rail track.

    I took the picture above this morning at about 11:00 am . It is a rail track just around the corner of my home. When I looked at that rail track this morning several thoughts came to mind. Firstly I thought how the railways made such a big change in the lives of ordinary citizens.

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  • If it hadn’t been for the Reichsbahn-the Nazi contolled railways ,the Holocaust would not have been possible to the extend it was.The irony, for lack of a better word, the hate for the Jews by  Hitler ,Himmler and the other Nazi leaders quite possibly caused them to lose the war. So many trains had been

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  • Like lambs to the slaughter they were led.But with one significant difference, lambs were treated more humanely. They were not tortured before death. I recently saw the movie “The Resistance Banker” it has one subtle but yet powerful scene, no words were spoken. A regular passenger train is stopped to facilitate a transport train to

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  • One of the cruel jokes the Nazis played on their victims was giving them hope. Like a railway sign indicating a return journey that was never to be. Only empty trains returned ready to pick up more victims like lambs led to the slaughter. On September 3,1944 the last transport by train from Westerbork Transit

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  • The Holocaust would not have been possible without the help of the railways, at least not to the extend as it happened. The Deutsche Reichsbahn was headed by Julius Dorpmüller, who was also Reich Minister for Transport, but it was  his deputy , Albert Ganzenmüller, who had the  responsibility for the organisation of trains for deportation. Ganzenmüller had

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  • There are circumstances when your life could very well depend on something as simple as a biscuit tin. This one went with Abel Herzberg and his wife Thea on a dreadful journey. In the Westerbork Transit Camp as well as the Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp, it was matter of life or death to be able to

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  • In a quiet cemetery outside Chicago lies a mass grave of clowns, strongmen, and acrobats who died in one of the worst circus tragedies in history. In the early morning hours of June 22, 1918, the members of the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus were fast asleep in the wooden cars at the back of their train. The Hammond

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  • Nazi Railways

    We have all seen the pictures of the cattle wagons used to transport the Jews and other ‘Undesirables’ to the concentration camps and ghettos. Without a shadow of a doubt the Nazi Railways network played a pivotal role in the ‘Final Solution’ .Ironically(for the lack of a better word) though the same network also potentially

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