Auschwitz artifacts to be installed in Kansas City’s Union Station for WWII exhibit

The first of hundreds of artifacts from the infamous Auschwitz concentration camp will be installed in Kansas City’s Union Station this week as part of an upcoming World War II exhibit.

Four of Auschwitz’s original concrete posts, including barbed wire and high-voltage wire — used to prevent detainees from leading the deadly camp — are to be installed Wednesday in Union Station’s Bank of America Gallery. The 13-foot-high posts are among more than 700 artifacts that will be part of a special exhibit titled “Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away.”

The exhibit, presented by Bank of America, is scheduled to open to the public on June 14. In a press release announcing the installation, the four concrete posts are referenced as “ as visual symbols of death camps created during World War II by Nazi Germany.”

“They also stand to remind and warn the world that these human atrocities happened not long ago and not far away,” the release said.