A German rail car, the same kind that was used to transport Jews to concentration camps during the Holocaust, now has a permanent home at the Danville Station Museum.
On Thursday, the rail car, and the people who found it, stopped in Davenport for a press conference.
The Jewish Federation of the Quad Cities helped them find the rail car, and a $500,000 grant from the state of Iowa helped pay for it.
Janet Hesler is the museum curator. She says the rail car will be part of an exhibit inspired by Anne Frank.
"To highlight Anne's hobby of collecting postcards, we're trying to collect postcards as well—1.5 million, to represent the number of children that died during the Holocaust. We've been trying for several years to get a pre-World War II rail car to house the postcards in," she said.
"Our next dream is to build a structure to protect the rail car from the Iowa weather. Our hope, between the Anne Frank letters and the rail car exhibit, is to become the center of Holocaust education in the state."
Husband and wife, Claudia Korenke and Bernhard Mertens found the car in Germany. Mertens says that the German railway system played an important role in the Holocaust.
"Why do we, and others, display a German freightcar inside commemorating the Holocaust of the Nazi regime?" Korenke translated for Mertens.
"These wagons are a symbol of the deportation transport that were carried out by the German Reichsbahn. This was a logistical organization, without which, the Holocaust, the murder of approximately six million Jewish people, would not have been possible."
The 10-ton rail car was refurbished in Germany, a process that took over 2,000 hours, before it was shipped to the U.S..
The couple and the restorationist were given gifts by Davenport and Bettendorf Mayors Mike Matson and Bob Gallagher. They also recieved certificates on behalf of Gov. Kim Reynolds and more gifts from the Jewish Federation of the Quad Cities.
Several speakers at the event said they hope the rail car will serve as a reminder not to let history repeat itself.
It will join several other Holocaust exhibits at the Danville Station Museum.
