NEXT MONTH, the Italian state railway will launch a 186-mile-per-hour train that will revolutionize travel in Italy. But below the track of that train's send-off from Milan's Central Station, another important door to history is being opened. The state railway recently signed an agreement to allow work to begin on a Holocaust memorial there.

The heart of the memorial will be the track used to deport Jews and others from 1943 to 1945. It has remained untouched since. "It's a ruin, an archeological find," said architect Guido Morpurgo, and his design, with the track as the memorial's heart, reflects this.