Fury as passenger snatch control of Belgian commuter train's PA to tell Jewish passengers to 'get off at Auschwitz and take a short shower'

  • At least 1.1million died at the Nazi death camp in German-occupied Poland
  • 90 per cent of the victims were Jewish, others included gypsies and PoWs
  • A complaint of incitement to hatred has been made to Belgian police

By Damien Gayle

Published: | Updated:


Racists aboard a packed train in Belgium snatched control of its PA system to tell Jews to get off at Auschwitz 'and take a short shower'.

The suspects were able to access the Namur to Brussels train's tannoy during the peak of the evening rush hour to make the reference to the notorious Nazi concentration camp.

One said in French: 'Ladies and gentlemen, we are approaching Auschwitz. All Jews are requested to disembark and take a short shower.'

An SNCB train like the one involved: The suspects were able to access the Namur to Brussels train's tannoy during the peak of the evening rush hour to make the reference to the notorious Nazi concentration camp

An SNCB train like the one involved: The suspects were able to access the Namur to Brussels train's tannoy during the peak of the evening rush hour to make the reference to the notorious Nazi concentration camp

Auschwitz was the scene of one of the worst mass exterminations of the Second World War where, over the course of several years, more than a million Jews, gypsies and others were gassed or worked to death.

Belgian rail company SNCB has filed an incitement to hatred complaint with police over the incident at about 5pm on January 31.

A passenger also reported it to Viviane Teitelbaum, a Jewish MP in the assembly of the Brussels region.

She told Belgian broadcaster RTL that the witness suspected that it was teenagers who had got hold of the keys that conductors use to make announcements over the train's tannoy.

Auschwitz was a network of concentration camps and extermination centres built and operated by the Nazis in parts of southern Poland which were annexed by Germany during the Second World War.

A dominant symbol of the Holocaust, it went on to become a major site of the Nazis' 'Final Solution to the Jewish question', with Jews delivered to its gas chambers from all over German occupied Europe.

'Work makes free': The main gate of the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz I, which was the centre of a network of camps where more than a million Jews, gypsies, Russians and others were murdered by the Nazis

'Work makes free': The main gate of the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz I, which was the centre of a network of camps where more than a million Jews, gypsies, Russians and others were murdered by the Nazis

Guards would tell new arrivals selected for extermination that they were to take a shower and undergo delousing, before leading them into chambers disguised as communal showers.

There the victims - mainly women, children and the elderly who were not considered useful enough specimens for the labour camps - would be locked in and gassed with the pesticide Zyklon B.

It is believed that at least 1.1million prisoners died at Auschwitz, either by gassing or by being worked to death, 90 per cent of them Jews.

Others deported to Auschwitz included Poles, Romany gypsies, Soviet PoWs, Jehovas Witnesses and tens of thousands of people of other diverse nationalities.

Thierry Ney, a spokesman for SNCB, told RTL that misuse of trains' PA systems is an offence punishable by a fine or prison sentence. He added that a complaint would be filed to Belgian police.

'We condemn the abuse of the intercom and the words spoken,' he said.

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