survived the Holocaust. A second train left on 30 January 1944, carrying 600 deportees, 40 of them children including Liliana Segre, who were taken on a seven-day journey to Auschwitz. Upon arrival at Auschwitz on the morning of 6 February, 500 of them were killed within a few hours and their bodies burned in the crematorium. Between 6 December 1943 and 15 January 1945, when the last train left for Bolzano, 20 trains and up to 1,200 Jewish prisoners left Milan from Platform 21 for either the Italian transit camps at Fossoli and Bolzano, or Auschwitz, Mauthausen, and Bergen-Belsen. Memorial Platform 21 remained virtually forgotten for the next four decades. It was rediscovered in 1995 when the local Catholic organization Sant’Egidio made the Jewish community of Milan aware of it. In 2002, work began to turn the site into a memorial for the deported. But the project stalled and progressed very slowly over the next decade. The idea to construct a memorial came from the then-Archbishop of Milan, Carlo Maria Martini. Partial funding for the project, which was estimated to cost approximately US$15.6 million, was secured through the local government and sponsors. The project could not, however, be financially supported by the local Jewish community, which lacked the resources. While the project did not encounter active opposition, it was hampered by a certain disinterest and embarrassment in Italy, where the Italian contribution to the Holocaust in the country is still a controversial subject. On 27 January 2013, Holocaust Remembrance Day, the memorial was inaugurated in the presence of Prime Minister Mario Monti, officials from Italian State Railways and other institutional and religious dignitaries and guests. According to the foundation for the memorial, Binario 21 is the only European site which was involved in the deportations that still remains intact. The memorial features two original freight cars that were used in the deportations, and a wall onto which the names of the people deported from the station to concentration camps are projected. In recent times, the memorial has also served as a shelter for refugees from Syria and Eritrea, who have travelled through Libya to reach Italy. Notable victims Liliana Segre, Italian senator for life and Holocaust survivor, deported from Platform 21 at the age of 13, alongside her father Alberto who was murdered at Auschwitz on 27 April 1944. References External links Memoriale della Shoah - Museum website The Holocaust