Traffic along Tremont Street in downtown Boston ground to a halt Tuesday morning as a massive 173-foot crane carefully elevated a 12-ton, early 20th-century railcar to the fourth floor of the under-construction Holocaust Museum Boston—the region’s first dedicated to Holocaust remembrance.
Established in 2022 by the Holocaust Legacy Foundation, co-founded by Jody Kipnis and Todd Ruderman after a transformative 2018 trip to Auschwitz, the museum seeks to honor victims’ memories and confront the era’s horrors through immersive education. The railcar, resembling those Nazis employed to deport Jews and others to death camps, represents a pivotal step in the project, set to welcome visitors along the Freedom Trail near Boston Common by late 2026.
Once complete, the artifact will occupy a prominent bay window on the fourth floor, allowing passersby below to witness entrants boarding but never disembarking—a poignant design choice evoking the millions who vanished into oblivion and the liberties savagely revoked…