The Deutsche Bahn (DB) Museum in Nuremberg will host a small exhibition dedicated to the so-called Auschwitz Album, a unique photographic document that captures in detail the arrival of Jewish deportees at the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. The exhibition highlights the role played by rail transport in the deportations organized by the Nazi regime.
The album is considered the only surviving photographic evidence documenting step by step the deportations and selection at the ramp in the summer of 1944. The photographs were taken by members of the SS and directly capture the arrival of trains carrying deportees from Hungary, one of the largest operations of this type during the Holocaust.
A key document for understanding the deportations
The Auschwitz Album comprises 56 pages and 193 photographs. The images were not intended as historical documents, but this is precisely what gives them their exceptional value: they show the logistics of deportation, from the disembarkation of the trains to the separation of the victims, without being filtered by any subsequent official discourse.
The album was discovered by chance in 1945 by Lilly Jacob, a former deportee, after the liberation of the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp. The material was later used as evidence in the first Frankfurt Trial on the crimes at Auschwitz, contributing to the legal documentation of Nazi crimes.
In 1980, Lilly Jacob donated the album to Yad Vashem, Israel’s official Holocaust memorial. In 1999, the material was digitized and subsequently formed the basis of thematic exhibitions, including an online version.
The railway, part of the deportation mechanism
The exhibition in Nuremberg is closely linked to another central element of Holocaust memory: rail transport. At Yad Vashem, an original Reichsbahn freight car is the centerpiece of the memorial dedicated to Jewish deportees from across Europe. The car symbolizes the inhumane conditions in which millions of people were transported to the extermination camps.
In 2024, this memorial was restored, and the project was supported by Deutsche Bahn. On this occasion, material from the Auschwitz Album was integrated into a temporary exhibition initially presented at the DB Academy in Potsdam. The traveling exhibition is now coming to the DB Museum in Nuremberg, complemented by a documentary film showing the restoration process of the monument at Yad Vashem.
Temporary exhibition and public access
The exhibition will be open to the public from January 25 to April 26, 2026. On the occasion of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the museum will organize two free guided tours on January 25 at 1:00 p.m. and 2:00 p.m. Starting on February 8, there will be free guided tours every Sunday at 1:30 p.m..
Historical memory and responsibility
Through this exhibition, the DB Museum brings to the public’s attention the railway dimension of the Holocaust, an aspect often reduced to technical context, but essential to understanding how deportations were organized and carried out on an industrial scale. Photographs, objects, and documentary film are pieced together to explain not only what happened, but also how it was possible.
The exhibition does not seek to provide definitive answers, but rather to offer a framework for reflection, in which the railway infrastructure appears not as a symbol of progress, but as part of one of the darkest chapters in European history.
The DB Museum in Nuremberg is open from Wednesday to Sunday, and standard admission to the museum costs 10 EUR.
Share on:
