Umschlagplatz (Warsaw Ghetto)

Jews loading onto trains at the Umschlagplatz

The current memorial on the site

In the Holocaust, the Umschlagplatz (German: collection point or reloading point) in the Warsaw Ghetto was where Jews gathered for deportation to the Treblinka extermination camp.

During the Grossaktion Warsaw, beginning on July 22, 1942, Jews were deported in crowded freight cars to Treblinka. On some days as many as 7,000 Jews were deported. An estimated 300,000 Jews were taken to the Treblinka gas chambers, and some sources describe it as the largest killing of any single community in World War II. The deportations ended on September 12, 1942.

The Umschlagplatz was created by fencing off a western part of the Warszawa Gdańska freight train station that was adjacent to the ghetto. The area was surrounded by a wooden fence, replaced later by a wall. Railway buildings and installations on the site as well as a former homeless shelter and a hospital were converted to the prisoner selection facility. The rest of the train station served its normal function for the rest of the city during the deportations.

In 1988, a stone monument resembling an open freight car was built to mark the Umschlagplatz. The monument was created by architect Hanna Szmalenberg and sculptor Władysław Klamerus.

See also

• Oyneg Shabbos

Bibliography

• Bernard Goldstein. Five Years in the Warsaw Ghetto. Dolphin, Doubleday. New York, 1961
• Emanuel Ringelblum. Kronika getta warszawskiego wrzesień 1939 - styczeń 1943. Warszawa 1988.

External links

• Monument photos and information