Prisoners from across Nazi-occupied Europe were forcibly deported to Auschwitz in nightmarish conditions: crammed into freight cars, with no water or food, traveling for days on a journey that sometimes proved deadly. In many cases, the people suffering this journey had already been subjected to other cruelties including inhumane imprisonment in ghettos, legal and social marginalization, humiliation and degradation, and grueling years of internment in other concentration or forced labor camps. Then they arrived at the long platform known as The Ramp (Die Rampe).
