Lustig Train revisits Holocaust

Prague, July 13 (CTK) - A unique performance is offered by the Lustig Train or the Train into Oblivion at a scene created on a railway carriage with which Nazis transported Jews to concentration camps during World War Two and which set out on its ride Friday.

The train will visit railway stations in 14 towns until July 26.

The Prague-Bubny railway station was its first stop where the actors of the Divadlo pod Palmovkou theatre showed the "train version" of the performance Prayer for Katerina Horovitzova based on a novel by Czech Jewish writer Arnost Lustig.

They started performing it in the theatre in mid-June.

Another carriage contains the exhibition of the Military Historical Institute and the third a cinema with the screenings of contemporary films.

The project was launched within the autumn part of the Nine Gates festival of Czech-German-Jewish culture.

The train will set out on a symbolical route from Wannsee near Berlin on August 20-26.

In Wannsee, the decision on the final solution to the Jewish question was made on January 20, 1942.

The train will go through Prague and Cracow to Auschwitz (Oswiecim). This is the scene of a large part of the story of Lustig's novel.

Lustig (1926-2011) is a Holocaust survival who was also in Auschwitz.

The Prayer for Katerina Horovitzova is a story from 1943.

The main character who is threatened with death in the extermination camp appeared in a group of rich Jews and she thinks she may be saved.

However, the Nazis play a devious play with the "low race" in order to get money from the Jews' bank accounts and all of them eventually perish.