The Boxcar

About our Boxcar

The Florida Holocaust Museum is home to one of the few remaining railroad boxcars of the type used by the Nazis to transport Jews and other prisoners to places like Auschwitz and Treblinka. Boxcar #113 069-5 now rests on original tracks from the Treblinka Killing Center as a silent tribute to those who perished in the Holocaust and is featured as part of the History, Heritage and Hope permanent exhibition.

Boxcars were the first place of death for many during the Holocaust. The bare freight cars often became a suffocation chamber for some of the people (100 or more at a time) who were squeezed into it. Those who survived the trip had to endure the journey under conditions of hunger and thirst, extreme overcrowding, and horrible sanitation. Many of those deported, especially the elderly and children died during the journey.