Umschlagplatz Monument

Umschlagplatz Monument

This is one of the most characteristic monuments in the capital. It was built in 1988 according to a design by  Hanna Szmalenberg and Władysław Klamerus. It is located near a now non-existent railway platform which was used to load prisoners onto trains headed for the extermination camps. The monument resembles an open freight car on a small square.

4-metre high, white walls surround the square and have sad black plaques which look down on visitors with their inscriptions in several languages - "Over 300,000 Jews followed this path of suffering and death between 1940-1943 from the Ghetto created in Warsaw to the Nazi death camps". A huge black stone crowns the monument, engraved with broken trees.

Because the builders used poor materials a renovation was called for in 2007 which lasted 1 year. Jan Beyga was in charge of the project which cost just over half a million zloties.