KZ-Transport 1945 Memorial

About

The KZ-Transport 1945 Memorial is located in Nammering, Föhrenweg - a district of the Lower Bavarian community of Fürstenstein in the district of Passau, Germany. It was erected in 1984 to commemorate the victims of various nationalities of the Buchenwald evacuation trains. Coming from the Buchenwald concentration camp, a train with 54 freight cars arrived at Nammering station on 19 April 1945 after a twelve-day journey.

During the five-day stay, 794 prisoners lost their lives here. They had been starved to death, killed or shot. On 24 April, the train continued its journey through Passau, Pocking, and Munich to Dachau.

Only 816 people arrived there alive and 2,310 dead were counted on the train at the Dachau concentration camp. Here in Nammering, the 270 prisoners who had already died during the transport were burnt in a quarry and the other 524 murdered were buried in a swamp meadow (Totenwiese). After the liberation of Germany by the Americans, the mass grave was only discovered three weeks later.

The Americans ordered the half-rotten corpses to be excavated and laid out in rows on the meadow of the dead. Then the entire population had to pass by the dead. Each body had its own...