This railroad siding, universally known as "the ramp," was the final station where trains carrying people sentenced to extermination stopped. Hundreds of thousands of Jews from the countries occupied by Nazi Germany arrived here, as did prisoners of other nationalities, mostly Poles and Gypsies. Selections were carried out here among the Jews, as a result of which most of them were sent to immediate death in the gas chambers. This ramp functioned from 1942 until May 1944, when a
new railroad spur extending into the grounds of the Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp was built.
The first transport of prisoners (728 Poles, including 20 Polish Jews), who arrived in Auschwitz concentration camp on June 14, 1940, was sent to the railroad siding adjacent to the main camp. Some transports of prisoners were also turned over to the SS at the Oswiecim railroad station.
