User:Amikamraz/sandbox/Wagon Monument (Netanya)

The Wagon Monument in Netanya, Israel, is a memorial to the victims of the Holocaust that stands in the Beit Yad Labanim complex in Netanya. It consists of a wagon with the number "München 246 12," which resembles the tens of thousands of freight train wagons that transported millions of Jews from all over Europe in the years 1941-1945 to the concentration, labor and death camps. Around the transportation journey of the Jews in these train wagons, the Nazi government built a false and sophisticated mechanism, which was designed to create an illusion that the Jews were being transported from their homes to Eastern Europe for the purpose of work and resettlement. About 100 people were crammed into each wagon: children, women and men, young and old. The trip took about a day and sometimes even more. During the trip, the conditions were appalling: overcrowding to the point of suffocation, hunger, thirst and not knowing what the destination of the trip was. About a million and a half of these millions of Jews already died during the journey, and only very few managed to escape them. Dozens of partisan operations were carried out with the aim of delaying or preventing the trains from traveling.

History
The wagon, which weighs 10 tons, was built in the early 1920s.

The initiative to bring an original Holocaust wagon to Israel was that of Tatiana-Matanya Ruge from Berlin and Roni Meir Dotan from Tel Aviv, who engage in volunteer research and commemoration of the victims of the Holocaust. After months of searching, this wagon was found in a scrap yard in Aachen, on the German-Belgian border. It was checked to verify that it was a wagon that indeed had been used for the transportation of Jews during the war. With the help of donations it was purchased, transported to Israel, put in place and renovated. During the renovation, three Stars of David engraved in different places on the chassis of the wagon were discovered.

The wagon is used for teaching and educational activity about the subject of the Holocaust, involving Holocaust survivors and their personal stories. It was recognized as one of 24 Holocaust wagons in the world used to commemorate the Holocaust and its victims.