There is a Holocaust-Era Train Car In Front of the Museum of Jewish Heritage

[conuly]

I did not know that until I passed by it today on the way to the optometrist with the kids.

You look at numbers - this many people crammed into this tiny a space - but I didn't realize exactly how very small that space was before. I guess it's just that much more horrific than I realized, and honestly, I thought we all knew. But apparently "we all" did not adequately include "me". That is... really fucking small. And now I can see that.

Comments

[dewline]

The sight of the image files depicting that train car left me taking Names in what I fear to be vain. And I can't even go to visit in person.

Dammit.

[ayebydan]

I know the feeling. My friend and I went to the slave trade museum in Liverpool once. We knew it would be an interesting yet horrific experience but I don't know...felt we should. They have a set up where you can lie in the sort of space a stolen African slave would have had. Then there is this horrible tiny cornered off area where it is all dark apart from flashes on screens of what looks like limbs, chains and vomit, feces, urine ect and the sound system really loudly plays sounds of the sea, people groaning, dying, defecating, being sick ect. Like you say you think you know and then you get this sudden moment.

[jhetley]

A lot of people died in transit. This was not considered a problem at the time.

[conuly]

Well, I mean, it wouldn't be.

[conuly]

I do not think I was adequately prepared to know this. (Which is NOT to say that I think that it shouldn't be on display there. Just... wow, it was shocking.)

[conuly]

It's viscerally upsetting with the context. I thought I understood, and boy I did not.

[jhetley]

Wife had a relative, her mother's generation, who survived Auschwitz.

[conuly]

It's good she survived. I hope her life afterwards wasn't too hard.

[jhetley]

Well, her next challenge was escaping from the Red Army. But she lived into her 80s or 90s -- I'd have to dig into genealogy to find out exactly.

Tough old bird.

[negothick]

That Train Car is part of the current exhibit at the Museum of Jewish Heritage which was supposed to have ended in January, but has now been extended for many months. Hope it will help more people visualize the Shoah.

[conuly]

Here's hoping.