Railway of death
How Hitler’s trains transported millions of Jews to their doom…
At the age of 14, in August 1944, Arek Hersh was herded into a cramped cattle truck and taken by train from the ghetto where he lived in Lodz, Poland, to the gates of the infamous Nazi death camp Auschwitz to await his fate – either to be selected for work or die in the gas chambers.
‘The train stopped and we walked up to three officers,’ says Arek. ‘They picked you to die or to live. They chose women, children and old men.
All those people died.’
Ghetto lives
In this documentary, Chris Tarrant explores how trains played a chilling role in the Nazi Holocaust. Without the massive railway system, the war and the Holocaust could never have happened.
Chris also goes to Prague to meet Helga, who, along with all of the city’s Jews, was sent by train to a ghetto under appalling conditions.
‘It was cold,’ says Helga, who was 12 at the time. ‘There was snow and SS men were screaming orders at us. The women and men were separated. My father was sent somewhere else, but we didn’t know where.’
Helga was later taken to Auschwitz. In 1944, in just eight weeks, around 430,000 Jews travelled in cattle trucks through the gates of Auschwitz. Most were never seen again.
Gone forever
Helga believes her father was murdered in the death camp. Miraculously, she and her mother survived.
‘The railway was central to the Nazis’ plan of getting rid of Jews,’ says Chris. ‘They were the railways of death. It’s a chapter in history that must never be forgotten.’