Boxcars used to deport Thessaloniki’s Jews to Auschwitz being restored
Two railway boxcars used to transport Thessaloniki Jews to their deaths at the Nazi extermination camp at Auschwitz during the German occupation are being restored at the initiative of a 93-year-old former Hellenic Railways (OSE) director whose uncle, aunt and cousins were among those deported to the camps.
Savvas Koen, who is Jewish, decided to undertake the cost of repairing the two boxcars during a visit to Thessaloniki Railway Museum a year ago, where he was informed about their existence by site managers.
“Last June we went on a trip to Thessaloniki with the Athens Friends of the Railway Association, of which I am a member. And, among other things, we visited the Railway Museum. There, I learned the story of the two wagons, with which the Germans transported the Jews from Thessaloniki’s old railway station to Auschwitz, and I was moved. I thought a small contribution to the [memory of the] Holocaust would be to donate money to repair them, to honor, in this way, the six million Jews around the world who passed away,” Koen told the Athens-Macedonian News Agency.
Konstantinos Pataras, chairman of the Thessaloniki Friends of the Railway Association, said the wagons are being restored on the grounds of the Railway Museum in Kordelio under the supervision of retired OSE foremen.
Apart from the wood, which had to be fully replaced, the restored boxcars will retain all their original materials.
“The wagons were abandoned on the OSE network. They are very old German builds from 1890, which were used after the war as workshops, that is, they were used to carry tools for line repairs,” he explained.
The restoration effort is relying on old photographs and data collected by his association, Pataras said. “The wagons were in bad shape … They are a part of the historical mosaic of the history of Thessaloniki. The history of the city, with the presence of Jewish citizens, is intertwined with the history of the railway and the wagons that transported them to the crematoriums [at Auschwitz].”
Starting in March 1943, the majority of Thessaloniki’s Jews, more than 48,000 men, women and children, were deported by the Germans to the Auschwitz II-Birkenau sub-camp, where almost all were immediately gassed. Another 4,000 were sent to Treblinka and a smaller number to Bergen Belsen. Of those deported, only 1,950 returned to Thessaloniki.
Born in Thessaloniki in 1931, Koen moved to Athens with his family at the age of 9, shortly before the German invasion, as his older sister was going to study medicine. During the Axis occupation, he narrowly escaped being captured by the Germans. However, his uncle, aunt and cousin were deported to the camps. He later studied civil engineering and joined OSE. [AMNA, Kathimerini]
