The Deportation Platform and livestock cars

The railcars present at the Memorial are original railcars of the same period and of the same model as those used for deportations. They are leaded wooden railcars, which can only be opened from the outside, and hollow, because they were originally made for the transport of livestock. In a railcar designed to carry 7/8 horses, the occupiers would cram 60 to 80 people at a time, forcing them to travel in inhumane and unhygienic conditions, without even a place to lie down. The extermination process would actually start well before arriving at the concentration camp. The journey would last several days, up to a week, without food and water; cold in winter and hot in summer. In this place the deportees experience the first traumatic act of cruelty, which will worsen after their arrival at the camps of Auschwitz, Bergen Belsen, Mauthausen, Fossoli, Verona and Bolzano.