Umschlagplatz

Umschlagplatz By Jordan Springer The Nazis killed many Jewish at the Treblinka Death Camp. Many of them came from the Warsaw Ghetto, transported on trains of goods carriages. However, there was a very important place between those two locations. It is the Umschlagplatz (meaning hub in German), a square serving the Warsawa Nadwislanska Station.

Like many horrific places of the Holocaust, the Umschlagplatz was not originally a place of sorrow and dreadfulness. It was just a simple square near the Warsawa Nadwislanska Station, a train station originally used to transport supplies of Warsaw. Then the Nazis got a hold of it, and it became a walled collection point for the Jewish before they were sent to imminent death at Treblinka Death Camp. However, that’s not all that happened at Umschlagplatz. As the Jewish moved through, they were hounded and beaten relentlessly and mercilessly by the SS and Jewish Police Force. Any who were lagging behind or rebelling in the slightest were shot on the spot. As the survivors were loaded onto the trains, they were beaten with rifles and shot at so they could fit the maximum amount of prisoners into each carriage. Even after the carriages were loaded to the maximum, children would be loaded on top of others’ heads. After this, the Jewish still had to brave a three-day trip to Treblinka. It is thought that five to six thousand Jewish passed through here every day, three hundred and twenty thousand in total.

As this is such a moving and provocative place, it is only fitting that they have a memorial there to all the Jewish that were killed or sent to their deaths here. There is one, and while it may be simple, it is powerful. It consists of a small, walled-in square. On the inside, it has 448 names to commemorate the Jewish imprisoned in the Warsaw Ghetto. There are also two inscriptions. The first reads: “Over 300,000 Jews passed down this road of suffering and death from the Warsaw Ghetto from 1942 to 1943.” The second is from the Book of Hiob (Job), reading “Oh Earth, do not hide my blood so that my cry will go unheard.”

Overall, the Umschlagplatz is a very emotional and touching place. Many Jewish passed through here to their deaths. If we stop here while we are in Warsaw, we should stop and take a moment to pay respect to the Jewish that came into contact with this horrid place.