Railways were essential to carrying out the Holocaust – decades later, corporate reckoning continues

Liliane Lelaidier-Marton stands in front of the kind of car her parents were forced into in Drancy, France, when deported to their deaths. Sarah Federman

The Holocaust could not have happened without the railways.

Preeminent Holocaust scholar Raul Hilberg underscored that almost everyone murdered at a camp arrived by train, including Jews, political prisoners and other “undesirables.” Since the 1990s, groups of survivors have asked European railway companies to acknowledge and atone for their critical role – a reminder that war, genocide and other atrocities cannot occur without corporate participation.