The Trains

Discussion in 'The Holocaust' started by chipm, Feb 13, 2020.

  1. chipm

    chipm Well-Known Member

    In WW2 videos, i frequently hear that, even late in the war, "Priority" is given to trains going to the camps, over "Military Trains"
    Generally speaking, is this true.?
    Thank You
     
  2. Robert-w

    Robert-w Banned

    According to Christian Gerlach, The Extermination of the European Jews, Cambridge University Press, 2016, and David Cesarani Final Solution the Fate of the Jews 1933- 49 William Henemann London 2016 no. The transports had very low priority which is why they took so long to complete their journeys as they were constantly being halted to allow top priority trains to pass. One reason why many French Jews survived was that there were not enough trains allocated for long enough to transport them and the non cooperation by much of the French police to assist in the round up meant that eventually many transports were cancelled.
     
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  3. chipm

    chipm Well-Known Member

    Thank You. That certainly makes more sense.
     
  4. Robert-w

    Robert-w Banned

    I think that this is one of those myths that persist - similar to the one that if the Allies had bombed the railway lines to the camps they could have stopped the holocaust but chose not to. . In reality a huge number went to their deaths not in camps but in killing grounds often quite close to where they lived and were marched there and shot - they never saw a camp. The four dedicated extermination camps that did most of the gassing like Treblinka were in operation for so relatively short a time with no more than one or two survivors that by the time that the Allies learned about them they had finished their ghastly business and closed. Their victims being dead within an hour or so of arrival. The majority of Holocaust victims were dead by the end of 1943 with close to 5 million having perished by that time. Much opinion on the Holocaust is coloured by Auschwitz and the memories of its survivors but despite the iconic photos of the railway line leading to the main gate this was a complex of camps served by a diverse network of lines
     
    Last edited: Feb 13, 2020
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