The Ring on the Boxcar

"I was here..."

The same boxcars that were meant to hold eight horses or 40 soldiers during World War I (the Great War), were used by the Reichsbahn (railroad) to hold between 80 and 120 Jews as the Third Reich transported them to one of the six death camps, 900 concentration camps, or 44,000 incarceration sites throughout Europe.

The Florida Holocaust Museum was fortunate enough to procure Boxcar #113 0695-5 from Poland.  This was one of the original cars used to transport human cargo to places such as Auschwitz and the Treblinka Killing Camp.  When the museum took possession of the car, they pressure washed the interior, and a little girl’s gold ring fell out from between the slats.  The museum displays the ring as a tribute to the child who hid it there.

The first time I saw that ring, I knew the little girl who hid it left it as a way of saying, “I was here.”  And I was determined that she would not be forgotten.  Her ingenious plan of leaving her ring as a message inspired me to honor her by giving Dr. Bridget Castle the same brilliant foresight.