Port Everglades handles a piece of history

Port Everglades handles a piece of history A piece of history transported from Poland by Zim Integrated Shipping Services is being stored at Port Everglades while work continues on the South Florida Holocaust Museum that is scheduled to open in Hollywood next year.
   An early 20th Century rail car that is the type used by the Nazis in World War II to transport millions of Jews to death camps was offloaded at APM Terminals in Port Everglades Jan. 25. The rail car is one of only eight of its kind in the world.

A Holocaust-era rail car, one of only eight artifacts like it in the world, arrived at Port Everglades Jan. 25 from Gdynia, Poland aboard a Zim ship and is being stored compliments of APM Terminal at Port Everglades.

   There was a brief ceremony the following day, with Rabbi Robert Frazin performing a Kaddish, a traditional Jewish prayer for the dead. There were some Holocaust survivors present to mark the occasion and share their memories.
   'I traveled mostly on closed trains surrounded in barbed wire to make sure we did not escape,' said Halina Laster, survivor and president of the Century Pines Holocaust Survivors Group in Pembroke Pines. 'Imagine ' if you will, hundreds of bodies so cramped that you could not sit. No food. No water. If we were lucky, we received a bucket for relief, one for all of us. And, at each stop, the dead bodies were removed. Surviving those trips in and of itself, was a miracle for many.'