Judenrampe - it ends here ......

Judenrampe – the place where trains with deported prisoners destined for Auschwitz stopped, active in the years 1942-1944. Although the ramp was quite an important place for the extermination machine, it is a "forgotten" and rarely visited place.

It was a railway ramp to which transports of prisoners from all over occupied Europe arrived, located about 1300m from the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp complex. Judenrampe served almost exclusively the needs of the Birkenau extermination camp.

At the ramp, the victims were divided into two groups: those sent to exhausting work and those sent for immediate extermination.

Josef Mengele, the "Angel of Death", who chose victims for his medical experiments, was often seen at the ramp. Families were divided there, and stolen property was delivered to the warehouses called "Canada". The ramp ceased to operate in 1944, when direct railway tracks were connected to the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, where trains stopped at a distance of about 100 m from gas chambers 2 and 3.