Radegast Umschlagplatz
Radegast (polish Radogoszcz) station was located just outside the ghetto in Lodz. It served as a relocation station (umschlagplatz) for Jews deported to or from the ghetto in Lodz. The Germans called it Verladebahnhof ghetto Radegast. Before the war, the station was used as a transhipment station of raw materials like fuel and supplies for industrial purposes. When the Germans occupied Lodz, the station was first used for transhipment of goods manufactured in the ghetto. In 1941 and 1942, approximately 20,000 Jews were deported from the Warthegau district, about 20,000 Jews from Western Europe, and about 5,000 gypsies from Austria. When the Jews of the Lodz ghetto began to be deported to the Chelmno extermination camp, it was from Radegast station they were deported. In addition to deportations to Chelmno, Jews were deported to Auschwitz, Gross rosen, Stutthof, Sachsenhausen and Ravensbruck.
Current status: Preserved with museum (2009).
Address: aleja Pamieci Ofiar Litzmannstadt Getto, Lodz.
Get there: Car.
Follow up in books: Gilberg, Martin: Holocaust: A History of the Jews of Europe During the Second World War (1987).
The museum has a good balance between monument, museum and objects. The risk can sometimes be when sites are established or renovated that you are too overambitious in your ambition to remember. The station building, platform, locomotive and freight wagon are authentic objects that make the place well worth a visit.