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A Train Near Magdeburg―The Holocaust, the survivors, and the American soldiers who saved them
The incredible TRUE STORY behind an iconic photograph, taken at the liberation of a death train deep in the heart of Nazi Germany, brought to life by the history teacher who reunited hundreds of Holocaust survivors and their children with the actual American soldiers who saved them.
-From the author of 'The Things Our Fathers Saw' World War II narrative history trilogy-
~THE HOLOCAUST was a watershed event in history. In this book, Matthew Rozell reconstructs a lost chapter--the liberation of a 'death train' deep in the heart of Nazi Germany in the closing days of the World War II. Drawing on never-before published eye-witness accounts, survivor testimony and memoirs, and wartime reports and letters, Rozell brings to life the incredible true stories behind the iconic 1945 liberation photographs taken by the soldiers who were there. He weaves together a chronology of the Holocaust as it unfolds across Europe, and goes back to literally retrace the steps of the survivors and the American soldiers who freed them. Rozell's work results in joyful reunions on three continents, seven decades later. He offers his unique perspective on the lessons of the Holocaust for future generations, and the impact that one person, a teacher, can make.
-Featuring testimony from 15 American liberators and over 30 Holocaust survivors
-10 custom maps
-73 photographs and illustrations, many never before published.
502 pages-extensive notes and bibliographical references
Included:
BOOK ONE-THE HOLOCAUST
BOOK TWO-THE AMERICANS
BOOK THREE-LIBERATION
BOOK FOUR-REUNION
From the book:
- 'I survived because of many miracles. But for me to actually meet, shake hands, hug, and cry together with my liberators--the 'angels of life' who literally gave me back my life--was just beyond imagination.'-Leslie Meisels, Holocaust Survivor
- 'Battle-hardened veterans learn to contain their emotions, but it was difficult then, and I cry now to think about it. What stamina and regenerative spirit those brave people showed!'-George C. Gross, Liberator
- 'Never in our training were we taught to be humanitarians. We were taught to be soldiers.'-Frank Towers, Liberator
- 'I cannot believe, today, that the world almost ignored those people and what was happening. How could we have all stood by and have let that happen? They do not owe us anything. We owe them, for what we allowed to happen to them.'-Carrol Walsh, Liberator
- '[People say it] cannot happen here in this country; yes, it can happen here. I was 21 years old. I was there to see it happen.'-Luca Furnari, US Army
- '[After I got home] I cried a lot. My parents couldn't understand why I couldn't sleep at times.'-Walter 'Babe' Gantz, US Army medic
- 'I grew up and spent all my years being angry. This means I don't have to be angry anymore.'-Paul Arato, Holocaust Survivor
- 'For the first time after going through sheer hell, I felt that there was such a thing as simple love coming from good people--young men who had left their families far behind, who wrapped us in warmth and love and cared for our well-being.'-Sara Atzmon, Holocaust Survivor
- 'It's not for my sake, it's for the sake of humanity, that they will remember.'-Steve Barry, Holocaust Survivor
-From the author of 'The Things Our Fathers Saw' World War II narrative history trilogy-
~THE HOLOCAUST was a watershed event in history. In this book, Matthew Rozell reconstructs a lost chapter--the liberation of a 'death train' deep in the heart of Nazi Germany in the closing days of the World War II. Drawing on never-before published eye-witness accounts, survivor testimony and memoirs, and wartime reports and letters, Rozell brings to life the incredible true stories behind the iconic 1945 liberation photographs taken by the soldiers who were there. He weaves together a chronology of the Holocaust as it unfolds across Europe, and goes back to literally retrace the steps of the survivors and the American soldiers who freed them. Rozell's work results in joyful reunions on three continents, seven decades later. He offers his unique perspective on the lessons of the Holocaust for future generations, and the impact that one person, a teacher, can make.
-Featuring testimony from 15 American liberators and over 30 Holocaust survivors
-10 custom maps
-73 photographs and illustrations, many never before published.
502 pages-extensive notes and bibliographical references
Included:
BOOK ONE-THE HOLOCAUST
BOOK TWO-THE AMERICANS
BOOK THREE-LIBERATION
BOOK FOUR-REUNION
From the book:
- 'I survived because of many miracles. But for me to actually meet, shake hands, hug, and cry together with my liberators--the 'angels of life' who literally gave me back my life--was just beyond imagination.'-Leslie Meisels, Holocaust Survivor
- 'Battle-hardened veterans learn to contain their emotions, but it was difficult then, and I cry now to think about it. What stamina and regenerative spirit those brave people showed!'-George C. Gross, Liberator
- 'Never in our training were we taught to be humanitarians. We were taught to be soldiers.'-Frank Towers, Liberator
- 'I cannot believe, today, that the world almost ignored those people and what was happening. How could we have all stood by and have let that happen? They do not owe us anything. We owe them, for what we allowed to happen to them.'-Carrol Walsh, Liberator
- '[People say it] cannot happen here in this country; yes, it can happen here. I was 21 years old. I was there to see it happen.'-Luca Furnari, US Army
- '[After I got home] I cried a lot. My parents couldn't understand why I couldn't sleep at times.'-Walter 'Babe' Gantz, US Army medic
- 'I grew up and spent all my years being angry. This means I don't have to be angry anymore.'-Paul Arato, Holocaust Survivor
- 'For the first time after going through sheer hell, I felt that there was such a thing as simple love coming from good people--young men who had left their families far behind, who wrapped us in warmth and love and cared for our well-being.'-Sara Atzmon, Holocaust Survivor
- 'It's not for my sake, it's for the sake of humanity, that they will remember.'-Steve Barry, Holocaust Survivor
501 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 15, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 135 reviews
May 10, 2020
Tell him about the train
In July 2001, history teacher Matt Rozel initiated a project to create testimoniews of World War II veterans, as part of an course to teach history to his students. When interviewing Carol Walsh, he learned of the story about how they came to a place where there was a long train of boxcars. As it turned out, it was full of concentration camp victims, transported from Bergen-Belsen to an unkown location. Unbeknownst to them, they were scheduled to be blown up on a bridge spanning the Elbe. But the Americans intervened, and the German SS guards had left the night before. They were free.
This is how it all started.
Matthew Rozell put this story on his website and thought nothing of it. However, he was suddenly contacted by a 'child survivor', who found his website and decided to contact him. This sat things in motion: Matthew Rozell was contacted by more and more survivors and decided to set up a reunion, to get the liberators and the people they liberated in contact.
This book describes the experience of not only Matthew Rozell, but the survivors and their liberators. Matthew wanted to do justice of the narrative by the Holocaust, as evidenced by this microcosmic event of the liberation of the train in the backdrop of the vastness of the macrocosm of the Holocaust. He utilizes the voices of those who were there, both of the surviviors and their liberators.
This book gives a dramatic and emotional account of how the lives of people - both survivors and liberators - were impacted by the events. It gives a good overview of the impact of the Holocaust in the eyes of simple people who just happened to be Jewish, but were people all the way.
The book is roughly divided in three parts, glued together into the narrative of the author. The first part deals with the Holocaust, the experiences for the people involved. The second part deals with their Liberators, how they experienced the discovery of the train. And the third part deals with the effort from Matthew Rozell, who set up the first reunion and the many more that were to follow, giving the survivors the chance to thank their liberators.
One might think why this book should be read: there are so many books about the Holocaust and yes, we know it happened. But in no book that I have read up to this day, the story comes to live in such a personal way. How the lives of innocent people were impacted, what they went through and how they were formed by their experience. By zooming in on this particular event, you get to know what it was like - not only for the victims, but also for their liberators.
Or, as quoted in the book: It is important to have the past in front of you - not in the rearview as one moves forward.
In July 2001, history teacher Matt Rozel initiated a project to create testimoniews of World War II veterans, as part of an course to teach history to his students. When interviewing Carol Walsh, he learned of the story about how they came to a place where there was a long train of boxcars. As it turned out, it was full of concentration camp victims, transported from Bergen-Belsen to an unkown location. Unbeknownst to them, they were scheduled to be blown up on a bridge spanning the Elbe. But the Americans intervened, and the German SS guards had left the night before. They were free.
This is how it all started.
Matthew Rozell put this story on his website and thought nothing of it. However, he was suddenly contacted by a 'child survivor', who found his website and decided to contact him. This sat things in motion: Matthew Rozell was contacted by more and more survivors and decided to set up a reunion, to get the liberators and the people they liberated in contact.
This book describes the experience of not only Matthew Rozell, but the survivors and their liberators. Matthew wanted to do justice of the narrative by the Holocaust, as evidenced by this microcosmic event of the liberation of the train in the backdrop of the vastness of the macrocosm of the Holocaust. He utilizes the voices of those who were there, both of the surviviors and their liberators.
This book gives a dramatic and emotional account of how the lives of people - both survivors and liberators - were impacted by the events. It gives a good overview of the impact of the Holocaust in the eyes of simple people who just happened to be Jewish, but were people all the way.
The book is roughly divided in three parts, glued together into the narrative of the author. The first part deals with the Holocaust, the experiences for the people involved. The second part deals with their Liberators, how they experienced the discovery of the train. And the third part deals with the effort from Matthew Rozell, who set up the first reunion and the many more that were to follow, giving the survivors the chance to thank their liberators.
One might think why this book should be read: there are so many books about the Holocaust and yes, we know it happened. But in no book that I have read up to this day, the story comes to live in such a personal way. How the lives of innocent people were impacted, what they went through and how they were formed by their experience. By zooming in on this particular event, you get to know what it was like - not only for the victims, but also for their liberators.
Or, as quoted in the book: It is important to have the past in front of you - not in the rearview as one moves forward.
November 12, 2016
5stars
I've read and read about the holocaust the last few years. To the point that family and friends have questioned whether or not it's"healthy" to do so. So much death and despair. I've questioned myself as well. But as this book has made me see, I've barely touched on the history of the holocaust or WW2. With the world we live in and political winds shifting so much, it is important to learn and to teach. I loved this book and learned so much more and I would recommend anyone with an interest in this history or someone just stumbling across it to read it cover to cover. Thank you!!
I've read and read about the holocaust the last few years. To the point that family and friends have questioned whether or not it's"healthy" to do so. So much death and despair. I've questioned myself as well. But as this book has made me see, I've barely touched on the history of the holocaust or WW2. With the world we live in and political winds shifting so much, it is important to learn and to teach. I loved this book and learned so much more and I would recommend anyone with an interest in this history or someone just stumbling across it to read it cover to cover. Thank you!!
September 21, 2016
This is a wonderful novel, I stepped outside the YA genre to read it, My favorite WW2 novels are the young adult novels, such as The Book Thief or the emotional rollercoaster, sad, dramatic and amusing Edelweiss Pirates ‘Operation Einstein'.
A Train Near Magdeburg.
Matthew Rozell does a great job describing the horror that the poor Jewish community went through during WW2.
A great novel for history buffs and those interested in the Holocaust and the plight of so many. It breaks down the difference that a little good in some people effect peoples lives for generations to come.
The pictures are amazing many of them I have never seen before, the accounts from many liberators some American will remind you how lucky you are.
A Train Near Magdeburg.
Matthew Rozell does a great job describing the horror that the poor Jewish community went through during WW2.
A great novel for history buffs and those interested in the Holocaust and the plight of so many. It breaks down the difference that a little good in some people effect peoples lives for generations to come.
The pictures are amazing many of them I have never seen before, the accounts from many liberators some American will remind you how lucky you are.
November 22, 2018
There are things to really like about this books and some serious problems with the way it is written. I'll start with the positives. The first person accounts from the survivors of the Holocaust and the American soldiers who found the survivors are deeply moving. The accounts that the survivors tell of seeing the soldiers for the first time are an emotional experience to read. If this book had consisted of only these first person accounts, this would be a five-star book.
Unfortunately, there are two problems with this book. The first is that the writing style is not consistent. Some accounts are presented as diary entries, others are narratives written by the author based on his interviews, and others are presented as the interviews themselves. This disjointed style makes the book feel like an amateur effort, which is something a good editor would have cleaned up to make it a smoother reading experience.
The other problem is that the author inserts himself into the narrative of the Holocaust too much. For example, the section of the book that presents the survivors experiences in the camps contain passages of the author visiting those camps. It's quite jarring to read a horrific passage on the death camps and then suddenly your presented a passage about the author crying with a colleague at the death camp years later. Another example is a section of the book where he literally talks about how he met the survivors and how wrote the book. Again, this pulls away from the emotional impact of the survivor accounts. Finally, the author arranged reunions for the survivors and soldiers (a very noble thing to do), but he decided to print the speeches that they made at the reunions. These speeches contain lots of well-deserved thanks to the author, which would be appropriate at the reunions, but having these reprinted in the book seem a bit egotistical on the author's part. Again, most of these problems could have been avoided if the author had a good editor.
So, is this book worth reading? I think so. The accounts told by the survivors and soldiers are worth reading. However, my recommendation is to start skipping pages when the word "I" appears.
Unfortunately, there are two problems with this book. The first is that the writing style is not consistent. Some accounts are presented as diary entries, others are narratives written by the author based on his interviews, and others are presented as the interviews themselves. This disjointed style makes the book feel like an amateur effort, which is something a good editor would have cleaned up to make it a smoother reading experience.
The other problem is that the author inserts himself into the narrative of the Holocaust too much. For example, the section of the book that presents the survivors experiences in the camps contain passages of the author visiting those camps. It's quite jarring to read a horrific passage on the death camps and then suddenly your presented a passage about the author crying with a colleague at the death camp years later. Another example is a section of the book where he literally talks about how he met the survivors and how wrote the book. Again, this pulls away from the emotional impact of the survivor accounts. Finally, the author arranged reunions for the survivors and soldiers (a very noble thing to do), but he decided to print the speeches that they made at the reunions. These speeches contain lots of well-deserved thanks to the author, which would be appropriate at the reunions, but having these reprinted in the book seem a bit egotistical on the author's part. Again, most of these problems could have been avoided if the author had a good editor.
So, is this book worth reading? I think so. The accounts told by the survivors and soldiers are worth reading. However, my recommendation is to start skipping pages when the word "I" appears.
June 10, 2017
I have read countless Holocaust books in my life, but none has effected me quite like this one. Many times did I weep over the simple observations or memories of the victims--the kindness of their soldiers, their first clean toilets, privacy. We just really have no idea! Mr. Rozell's dedication to reuniting these people and telling their stories us such a gift!
October 20, 2016
Thanks
Never heard of this train and I've read many books on the holocaust, thank you for your time on bringing this book forward. It broke my heart but made me happy to read more on the men of our greatest generation.
Never heard of this train and I've read many books on the holocaust, thank you for your time on bringing this book forward. It broke my heart but made me happy to read more on the men of our greatest generation.
August 22, 2018
This is not a review of the story of the survivors and liberators of the death train that provides the title of the book. The story and the people to whom the story belongs are important. The telling of it in this book is poorly done though. The only strength comes from quoting survivors and liberators exactly. However, as the author/compiler inserts himself and his own narration into the story it becomes difficult to follow, and difficult to read.
The Rozell is a history teacher who happened upon this story. He did a lot of research and a lot of good in connecting survivors and liberators. His writing is frustrating at best and atrocious at worst. He vacillates between first person narrative (his own narration and journal entries) and third person narrative, referring to himself as "the author". It gives an air of pretension to his writing that is out of place for the story and subject matter of the book. On top of his narrative switching, the formatting is hard to follow, as he goes from first person accounts of the liberators and survivors back to his own first person narrative.
The organization of information is terrible as well. While Rozell collected a lot of data and information, he does not compile it well. It seems he fell in love with all the data he collected and couldn't bring himself to edit it down, thus dragging out the book. Evidence of this is his inclusion of whole emails, subject line and date. Also, the play-by-play recap of reunions and the transcripts of speeches at these reunions is obnoxious to read. His inclusion of these details serves to insert himself into the narrative and the story.
The last third of the book is about Rozell himself and his research, efforts to organize reunions (which is great and admirable), his school, and his part in all of this. Essentially, this book is about Rozell first, and an event in the Holocaust second. Coupled with a writing style that is the equivalent of a middle school orchestra attempting to play Shostakovitch, I really couldn't stand this book. But I did read the entire thing so I could be entitles to my opinion (and because I do believe the story of the liberation of the train near Magdeburg is an important event that should be recounted).
The Rozell is a history teacher who happened upon this story. He did a lot of research and a lot of good in connecting survivors and liberators. His writing is frustrating at best and atrocious at worst. He vacillates between first person narrative (his own narration and journal entries) and third person narrative, referring to himself as "the author". It gives an air of pretension to his writing that is out of place for the story and subject matter of the book. On top of his narrative switching, the formatting is hard to follow, as he goes from first person accounts of the liberators and survivors back to his own first person narrative.
The organization of information is terrible as well. While Rozell collected a lot of data and information, he does not compile it well. It seems he fell in love with all the data he collected and couldn't bring himself to edit it down, thus dragging out the book. Evidence of this is his inclusion of whole emails, subject line and date. Also, the play-by-play recap of reunions and the transcripts of speeches at these reunions is obnoxious to read. His inclusion of these details serves to insert himself into the narrative and the story.
The last third of the book is about Rozell himself and his research, efforts to organize reunions (which is great and admirable), his school, and his part in all of this. Essentially, this book is about Rozell first, and an event in the Holocaust second. Coupled with a writing style that is the equivalent of a middle school orchestra attempting to play Shostakovitch, I really couldn't stand this book. But I did read the entire thing so I could be entitles to my opinion (and because I do believe the story of the liberation of the train near Magdeburg is an important event that should be recounted).
October 31, 2018
This is a must-read for those who wish to learn about a different piece of the Holocaust. This is a nonfiction book about prisoners in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp who in the final days of WWII were put on a train to be moved (the Nazis were moving prisoners for "extermination" (that word makes my skin crawl) elsewhere. The train was abandoned and American soldiers found the prisoners and took steps to save their lives and keep them safe. The final section of the book is the amazing story of reuniting the soldiers with the Holocaust survivors some 70 years later. One soldier told the survivors when they met and the survivors called them heroes: "You do not owe us. We owe you. We can never repay what was stolen from you – your homes, your possessions, your businesses, your money, your art, your family life, your families, your childhood, your dreams and all your lives."
I know people who do not "like to read" Holocaust books, fiction and non, for various reasons. My rejoinder is that I constantly read about WWII and the Holocaust, plumbing the depths of the abyss that humanity is capable of, not because of a fascination with evil or death, but rather because of the opposite, because of a commitment to humanity. I say this less than a week after the horrific murdering of Jews while they were in a synagogue in Pittsburgh. It happened before; it can happen again. In fact it is happening on a much smaller stage. We need to be educated and watchful about Anti-Semitism that continues and seems to be on the rise. Again.
I know people who do not "like to read" Holocaust books, fiction and non, for various reasons. My rejoinder is that I constantly read about WWII and the Holocaust, plumbing the depths of the abyss that humanity is capable of, not because of a fascination with evil or death, but rather because of the opposite, because of a commitment to humanity. I say this less than a week after the horrific murdering of Jews while they were in a synagogue in Pittsburgh. It happened before; it can happen again. In fact it is happening on a much smaller stage. We need to be educated and watchful about Anti-Semitism that continues and seems to be on the rise. Again.
Want to read
April 12, 2020Free book
August 28, 2018
I really would like to have rated this book higher. The stories of those who lived through this time deserved to be heard. However, the author wanted his story told more. Even from the beginning when the author said: "Fifteen years after I brought this haunting image to the light of the day..." and goes on to describe how it has been used thanks to him. He recounts the stories of those who survived the ghettos, camps, and battles while also describing his trips, background, and ideas. I don't doubt his passion for the subject or his drive for wanting to teach others, but he did not need to have himself so much in the book.
July 20, 2020
"A Train Near Magdeburg" offers a powerful look at the liberation of 2,500 prisoners from a train leaving Birken-Belsen as told by the prisoners and the liberators. The book started with a picture taken by Major Clarence L. Benjamin. Author Matthew Rozell posted the picture and stories from some of the soldiers who found the train. In time, several of the liberated men and women discovered the website and reached out to the author. This book tells their stories with some first-person and some narrative accounts. Note: the writing style is inconsistent, and it's sometimes hard to know who is talking.
Overall, I am glad I read this book and would recommend it to others who are interested in history, human rights, and stories of hope. I've included a few of my favorite quotes/thoughts below.
"To really understand, one has to know the stories of the individuals who were here. We need the individuals to speak to us. And then, we need to give them the voice that was taken from them."
"I am a survivor of a concentration camp. My request is this--help your children become human."
"Former prisoners (of concentration camps) would say that always within about two weeks, new staff would have overcome any 'cognitive dissonance' that would have prevented them from doing their jobs. They became 'hardened.' They 'got over it.'"
"The atmosphere in class was much divided--like the rest of Hungarian society--between verbal antisemites, sympathizers who didn't act on their beliefs, and the majority who just remained silent. People let Jews be antagonized as long as they themselves were left alone."
"Their silence was a shock that has stayed with me all my life."
"The Almighty shares in our tragedy and is pouring tears of sorrow; He is crying on our behalf."
General Eisenhower: "I want every American unit not actually in the front lines to see this place. We are told that the American soldier does not know what he is fighting for. Now at least, he will know what he is fighting against."
When the train prisoners saw their liberators - "They displayed a facial expression we had all but forgotten existed; they smiled at us." "With their kind devotion toward us they sowed back into our soul the sparks and seeds of human hopes and feelings."
We focus on Hitler because "Perhaps the study in villainy that let the rest of humanity off the hook for the greatest crime in the history of the world."
"Evil happens when good men do nothing."
"The world does not have to be united, and in fact, it never has been and never will be. We argue and we disagree all of the time. That is as it is, and as it should be. At the end of the day, we either kill each other, or we live, and let live. We decide."
"Ask yourself, 'What do you want the world to be?' We are the new witnesses. We bear an awesome responsibility when we become aware, when we teach, when we communicate with others, now, more that ever, what we do matters, especially in entering this world of the Holocaust--because there is no past, and it is never over. We are shaping human beings. We are cultivating humanity. There are always the children, the young; there is hope amidst all the darkness in the world. The tunnel can lead to the light. You decide."
Overall, I am glad I read this book and would recommend it to others who are interested in history, human rights, and stories of hope. I've included a few of my favorite quotes/thoughts below.
"To really understand, one has to know the stories of the individuals who were here. We need the individuals to speak to us. And then, we need to give them the voice that was taken from them."
"I am a survivor of a concentration camp. My request is this--help your children become human."
"Former prisoners (of concentration camps) would say that always within about two weeks, new staff would have overcome any 'cognitive dissonance' that would have prevented them from doing their jobs. They became 'hardened.' They 'got over it.'"
"The atmosphere in class was much divided--like the rest of Hungarian society--between verbal antisemites, sympathizers who didn't act on their beliefs, and the majority who just remained silent. People let Jews be antagonized as long as they themselves were left alone."
"Their silence was a shock that has stayed with me all my life."
"The Almighty shares in our tragedy and is pouring tears of sorrow; He is crying on our behalf."
General Eisenhower: "I want every American unit not actually in the front lines to see this place. We are told that the American soldier does not know what he is fighting for. Now at least, he will know what he is fighting against."
When the train prisoners saw their liberators - "They displayed a facial expression we had all but forgotten existed; they smiled at us." "With their kind devotion toward us they sowed back into our soul the sparks and seeds of human hopes and feelings."
We focus on Hitler because "Perhaps the study in villainy that let the rest of humanity off the hook for the greatest crime in the history of the world."
"Evil happens when good men do nothing."
"The world does not have to be united, and in fact, it never has been and never will be. We argue and we disagree all of the time. That is as it is, and as it should be. At the end of the day, we either kill each other, or we live, and let live. We decide."
"Ask yourself, 'What do you want the world to be?' We are the new witnesses. We bear an awesome responsibility when we become aware, when we teach, when we communicate with others, now, more that ever, what we do matters, especially in entering this world of the Holocaust--because there is no past, and it is never over. We are shaping human beings. We are cultivating humanity. There are always the children, the young; there is hope amidst all the darkness in the world. The tunnel can lead to the light. You decide."
April 25, 2018
A Train Near Magdeburg: The Holocaust, the Survivors, and the American Soldiers Who Saved Them is a non-fiction by Matthew Rozell. This book traces the path that Matthew Rozell took in order to create the project that he had his students do which led to his meeting the American Soldiers who liberated the train near Magdeburg and the men and women they saved from imminent death. It includes first person accounts of what happened before and after the train stopped and the Nazis deserted it. The accounts are powerful and bring forth a plethora of feelings from the reader, some good and some bad. The approach Matthew takes in telling this story is interesting. He includes what is going on at his school and with the reunions, the history of some of the survivors on the train from 1939 to when the train was stopped and includes snippets of his various tours he took to Europe and Israel in search of meaning of the Holocaust for his students today.
Matthew Rozell tells his story in language everyone can understand. Although he isn’t overly graphic in his descriptions, the reader gets a very vivid picture of what is going on in the ghettos, camps, and trains. He doesn’t make the book about him, although the reunions wouldn’t have occurred without him. He allows himself to be under scrutiny as a teacher and as an individual. His obvious devotion to Holocaust Education is evident in his writing. Matthew’s love and admiration of the liberators and the Survivors is evident both in his various studies concerning the Holocaust as well as in the way he describes the Survivors and Liberators and how he has gotten very close to them.
The liberating of the train near Madeburg is one of the more obscure events of the Holocaust. It is one of the lesser known events and one which the world should be made aware of. This is a book which every Holocaust student should read.
Matthew Rozell tells his story in language everyone can understand. Although he isn’t overly graphic in his descriptions, the reader gets a very vivid picture of what is going on in the ghettos, camps, and trains. He doesn’t make the book about him, although the reunions wouldn’t have occurred without him. He allows himself to be under scrutiny as a teacher and as an individual. His obvious devotion to Holocaust Education is evident in his writing. Matthew’s love and admiration of the liberators and the Survivors is evident both in his various studies concerning the Holocaust as well as in the way he describes the Survivors and Liberators and how he has gotten very close to them.
The liberating of the train near Madeburg is one of the more obscure events of the Holocaust. It is one of the lesser known events and one which the world should be made aware of. This is a book which every Holocaust student should read.
February 27, 2021
In July 2001, high school history teacher Matt Rozel initiated a project to create testimonies of World War II veterans, as part of a course to teach history to his students. I find it impossible to write a synopsis of 500 pages of true history. Through his website, Matt was able to locate a certain WWII vet who was urged by his daughter to "tell him about the train". Matt was told of the liberation of boxcars filled with skeletal figures on a railway site near Magdeburg, a city halfway between Berlin and Hannover.
The discovery of this one soldier led him to many more as well as many of the survivors. Their stories are contained in this book as well as those of the soldiers, the beginning of "the final solution, and this earnest plea which should be committed to memory:
"I am a survivor of a concentration camp. My eyes saw what no person should witness -- gas chambers built by learned engineers. Children poisoned by education physicians. Infants killed by trained nurses. Women and babies shot by high school and college graduates. So I am suspicious of education. My request is this -- help your children become human. Your efforts must never produce learned monsters, skilled psychopaths or education Eichmanns. Reading, writing and arithmetic are important only if they service to make our children more human."
I felt the above quotation important as our current educators are sanitizing the history books and this crime against humanity will be forgotten. To not think about what happened is to forget and to forget is as good as saying it did not happen. Never forget.
The discovery of this one soldier led him to many more as well as many of the survivors. Their stories are contained in this book as well as those of the soldiers, the beginning of "the final solution, and this earnest plea which should be committed to memory:
"I am a survivor of a concentration camp. My eyes saw what no person should witness -- gas chambers built by learned engineers. Children poisoned by education physicians. Infants killed by trained nurses. Women and babies shot by high school and college graduates. So I am suspicious of education. My request is this -- help your children become human. Your efforts must never produce learned monsters, skilled psychopaths or education Eichmanns. Reading, writing and arithmetic are important only if they service to make our children more human."
I felt the above quotation important as our current educators are sanitizing the history books and this crime against humanity will be forgotten. To not think about what happened is to forget and to forget is as good as saying it did not happen. Never forget.
May 1, 2021
It Must Never Happen Again, Never.
This book was the most personal and real read of the horrors of Nazism I have ever read. The interviews, upon which this book is based, are factual and believable. I have always wondered why more aide/help was not available. It was a tumultuous time for Americans, but how could such horror exist? What an appropriate label "the most horrid event in the history of the world".
This book was the most personal and real read of the horrors of Nazism I have ever read. The interviews, upon which this book is based, are factual and believable. I have always wondered why more aide/help was not available. It was a tumultuous time for Americans, but how could such horror exist? What an appropriate label "the most horrid event in the history of the world".
June 2, 2020
Did anything good come from the Holocaust? Yes, our rescuers.
This is the takeaway from Matt Rozell's book. I found out online that they are making a documentary of this. I hope that I am able to watch it. This was a really interesting story about a trainload of Jewish people destined for the crematorium that were set free by a battalion of U.S. soldiers, and the history teacher that brought them together after more that 60 years. It is worth reading for the pictures alone.
This is the takeaway from Matt Rozell's book. I found out online that they are making a documentary of this. I hope that I am able to watch it. This was a really interesting story about a trainload of Jewish people destined for the crematorium that were set free by a battalion of U.S. soldiers, and the history teacher that brought them together after more that 60 years. It is worth reading for the pictures alone.
August 20, 2018
Not the easiest book to read, but sometimes things that are hard are more worthwhile. And in this case, the content here is absolutely invaluable. I am not a fan of the 'holocaust genre' - movies, books, etc. Not because I don't understand the importance of it, but because I read most for enjoyment and frankly, books in this genre are not at all enjoyable. But, this is absolutely an exception and exceptional. Not sure how he did it, but the author, maybe by using the participants' own words or maybe because you know the rest of the story--but however it was done--in a weird way, this book is both a warning against repeating this horrible mistake in history and uplifting and inspirational. But the main thing that I learned is that when we make out the Nazis to be monsters, we discount the possibility of it happening again, whereas the author points out their reality that makes it so much the more important to see that normal people can do monstrous things.
"People did these unspeakable acts to other people. But the ‘monster’ myth is just that. I suppose it is one way of coping with the unthinkable. Let the perpetrators off the hook, in a sense, labeling them ‘monsters,’ not humans capable of deeply evil deeds, and move on. But to me, it kind of absolves them of something. They are not ‘human,’ after all, so what does one expect of them?"
Very timely and relevant to our day.
"People did these unspeakable acts to other people. But the ‘monster’ myth is just that. I suppose it is one way of coping with the unthinkable. Let the perpetrators off the hook, in a sense, labeling them ‘monsters,’ not humans capable of deeply evil deeds, and move on. But to me, it kind of absolves them of something. They are not ‘human,’ after all, so what does one expect of them?"
Very timely and relevant to our day.
November 20, 2018
One of the most important books I've ever read. The first hand knowledge interwoven with the author's passionate tellings of his travels is unforgettable and moving.
July 9, 2021
An incredibly researched book with accounts from survivors and rescuers. A long, painful read (due to the overwhelming accounts of atrocities, knowing this barely touched on them.)
May 27, 2018
Powerful, unique, personal. This book tells the story of this remarkable rescue from the point of view of survivors and liberators. In the end, the author brings members from both groups together. These reunions in the later parts of these people's lives are equally powerful and moving. In the midst of such incomprehensible evil, there is human dignity and kindness.
December 8, 2017
Inspiring
A tremendous amount of work by the author produced a book unlike any I have read. The individual stories are heartbreaking and inspiring at the same time. Descriptions of existing, not living, on that train are difficult to absorb without ones heart breaking for these people. Those soldiers who liberated this train were often described as heroes by the one's they liberated. I believe the heroes were the people on the train. Striped of everything and everyone they refused to allow the Nazi's the satisfaction of their dying. The author does a fantastic job on this book. If only there were other people who cared half as much as he does. I congratulate him on a tremendous piece of work and being a wonderful, compassionate, human being.
A tremendous amount of work by the author produced a book unlike any I have read. The individual stories are heartbreaking and inspiring at the same time. Descriptions of existing, not living, on that train are difficult to absorb without ones heart breaking for these people. Those soldiers who liberated this train were often described as heroes by the one's they liberated. I believe the heroes were the people on the train. Striped of everything and everyone they refused to allow the Nazi's the satisfaction of their dying. The author does a fantastic job on this book. If only there were other people who cared half as much as he does. I congratulate him on a tremendous piece of work and being a wonderful, compassionate, human being.
July 28, 2017
When I began to read this book, I wasn't sure where this journey would take my soul. Mr. Rozell, I was so intrigued with your research, your writing and the devotion spent in your book. Thank you very much for sharing the feeling of not only the survivors of the train but as well as the liberators. My hand goes out to you and your students for the time and dedication spent in learning of such a drastic history, but one we must never forget.
I enjoy reading WWII books and this one is an excellent written and researched book.
Thank you for putting this book out so that people will not forget what happened during the Holocaust; not only to the Jews but to the Gentiles.
I enjoy reading WWII books and this one is an excellent written and researched book.
Thank you for putting this book out so that people will not forget what happened during the Holocaust; not only to the Jews but to the Gentiles.
December 28, 2017
Thankful
This book was painful with the memories of torture and the indignities suffered by innocents. Yet it was also uplifting to hear about the liberation and the people who helped along the journey. I am full of thankfulness for those who continue to keep the story alive for those who suffered and perished shall never be forgotten.
This book was painful with the memories of torture and the indignities suffered by innocents. Yet it was also uplifting to hear about the liberation and the people who helped along the journey. I am full of thankfulness for those who continue to keep the story alive for those who suffered and perished shall never be forgotten.
October 19, 2016
Different
This book is by no means bad but for me the style of the writing was not good. The story was amazing, how the train was rescued was incredible but I just found it really difficult to focus because of the style used to tell the story.
This book is by no means bad but for me the style of the writing was not good. The story was amazing, how the train was rescued was incredible but I just found it really difficult to focus because of the style used to tell the story.
December 3, 2016
Oh, if I could give this book a million stars, it would NOT be enough. What a thoughtful book written about the Holocaust. So interesting to read survivors' memories and those of the liberating US soldiers. It's going to be a while before this book leaves me.......if it ever does.
May 9, 2017
VERY THOUGHT PROVOKING BOOK
Have visited Bergen Belsen several times. It was near our training area, Bergen Hohne. While serving in northern Germany, in the early 1980's. Unbelievable that such a thing could happen then. But just as unbelievable that it happen again.
Have visited Bergen Belsen several times. It was near our training area, Bergen Hohne. While serving in northern Germany, in the early 1980's. Unbelievable that such a thing could happen then. But just as unbelievable that it happen again.
April 28, 2017
Great!
Very good and moving book. No matter how many books,movies or documentaries I see, i still find it amazing that this happened in the 20th century. Never forget.
Very good and moving book. No matter how many books,movies or documentaries I see, i still find it amazing that this happened in the 20th century. Never forget.
March 22, 2019
One looks at the cover, hope filled faces of women and children escaping a train, one expects a stories of people who are in this photograph, who were fortunate enough. It takes a great toll on one reading through this, until about a little less than halfway where the moment depicted on the cover occurs - the arrival of U.S. army and their encounter with the horrors via seeing this train. But the work is by someone who was born much later and delved into it with the same disbelief that those without any comparable experience are likely to, although it isn't a denial of the events. So the book plunges headlong into first hand accounts of Bergen-Belsen. And it's not for those with delicate sensibilities. Most of the first part is about the dying, the disposal of them, and the living ones dying in the process, all quite intended by those that ran the camp, merely as a matter of executing the plan, the orders. At about 10%, one of the descriptions of leaving the camp after Germans giving option to the inmates to stay or leave,
"We were a ragged group with tattered clothes, damaged even more when we pulled off the Jewish star that we had worn all those years.
"The Germans did not want the local population to know who we were. Many people were almost barefoot as we no longer had decent shoes. We walked unnoticed through the town of Bergen; the inhabitants in the houses on both sides of the road had their shutters closed. Some people in our column fell and were left by the wayside. Then, suddenly a small girl fell, and a German guard hurriedly picked her up and helped her to move on. I noticed the guard was crying. I had never before noticed any German guard having sympathy for the children in the camp even though many children were starving to death or dying of typhus. So why was this German guard crying? Did he suddenly take pity on this young girl? Or was he upset when he realized it was all over and Germany was going to lose the war?"
The part one finds significant amongst others being about the shutters of the town being closed, in view of the constant refrain heard from Germans generally about how nobody knew of what went on!
Another quote from a survivor, as the story - or rather, the series of accounts by various survivors - gets close to the cover photograph moment:-
"On the sixth day of our journey, April 12, a Thursday afternoon, we were about fifteen kilometers from Magdeburg, a city on the Elbe River about halfway between Berlin and Hannover. The train stopped on a curve near a bridge over the river, which wasn’t unusual, since a red light frequently stopped the train for a short period. This time, however, there wasn’t any movement. We later found out that the Nazis had devised a new plan—they wanted to position the train on the bridge and blow it up so that they could both kill us and stop the Allied advance. Somehow though, the engineer and his assistant had gotten wind of the plan. They, too, must have heard the rumbling explosions from the front line and realized that the end of the war was imminent. Not wanting to die, they just ran off while the train was stopped at the red light, leaving the train and its cargo behind."
But no, it wasn't that easy. Other nazis turned up, and
"April 12, 1945. We now reached the most crucial hour of our life during World War II under German Nazi rule. From each and every truck, a Jewish leader was asked to appear before a high-ranking SS officer, who issued a disastrous order that we immediately carried out. All men between the ages of sixteen and sixty were to line up in columns of five in front of the cattle trucks, with the angels of death fluttering around.
"A paralyzing darkness seized me. They were going to gun down the men with machine guns in front of the cattle cars, and then blow up the rest of us—babies, small children, women and the elderly—in the cattle cars. That was the decree that the Nazi beast devised when its hour of doom came—our SS captors decided to annihilate us all."
This was the day that FDR, suddenly and unexpectedly, died, and there was a short lived jubilation in Berlin hoping for the predicted turn that was ruined by the Russian advances into Vienna shortly.
"There were no secrets. Hitler laid out his plans all along as he developed the party platform. Simple answers to complex problems. But while the insidiousness of the invective struck fear in the hearts of the fractional minority of Germans who were Jews, no one could predict just how far this madness would go. No one could believe that in a short six years, two-thirds of European Jewry would be murdered by the Nazis and their willing accomplices.
"How could this happen? Like many infections, the terror incubated slowly and innocuously from the dregs of society; from the gutters of Munich rose up a movement that proclaimed glory and greatness, revenge and revolution. Setbacks would occur, but struggle is the father of all things, after all. From the pain and the suffering a new race of mankind would emerge. The weak would give way to the strong, and from the blood of the martyrs of the movement Germany would be purified and reconciled on its destined plane of glory. All hail, victory. Sieg Heil."
And, short but succinct answers to most questions about the predicament of Jews of Germany of the era:-
"The window for escape is also rapidly shrinking; Jews find it difficult to obtain passports for travel abroad. But the discrimination is incremental, so the question begged, should they leave? After all, this is their rightful home, Germany. Surely, the injustice will be righted when the world steps in or a new government comes to power. Who could possibly imagine the slave labor factories, the killing fields and forests, the industrialized mass murder, and the complicity of the ordinary man—even the neighbors—in the horrors to come?
"Increasingly, Jews were being also impoverished by the state. Jews were now required to register their property and non-Aryan businesses were taken over by other Germans, the pitiful compensation set by the state. Jewish doctors could not treat non-Jews, and Jewish lawyers lost their occupation. Who could afford to leave? Discounting the rampant antisemitism of the day, most nations had extremely rigid immigration policies, and at the international Evian Conference held at the French resort in 1938, almost every nation involved turned its back and refused to reconsider their immigration policies in the wake of an obviously humanitarian crisis. ... Where would they go?"
When confronted by questions of visitors or migrants in Germany, those assigned officially to respond resort to subterfuge or outright lies, perhaps not so instructed officially but as a routine anyway, and have a series of layers of lies ready, as habitual with liers - from "Jews left and migrated" to "we did not know", of course. Few have the accidental honesty of revealing to someone unfamiliar with church propaganda that Jews were being targeted via every pulpit, falsely if course, as responsible for crucifixion, and thus a racist hatred was nurtured in guise of piety that served to disguise later persecution of excellence by lumpen, of educated by those unwilling to work their minds, of knowledgeable by the ignorant.
The terminology, one doesn't realise, isn't impartial either:-
"The preeminent scholars of the Holocaust tell us that the Holocaust began on January 30, 1933, the day that Hitler came to power. They will also agree that the word ‘holocaust’, from the Greek referring to a burnt offering to the gods at the temple, is a now considered an inadequate name, and perhaps on some levels, inappropriate. ... Saul Friedländer sees it as an event that is impossible to put into normal language. Raul Hilberg, in his groundbreaking work at the beginning of the 1960s, called it the ‘Jewish Catastrophe’ or destruction; in Hebrew, ‘HaShoah’. Yehuda Bauer, who first classified it as the watershed event that it is, still struggles with the label ‘Holocaust’ and falls back on the ‘genocide of the Jewish people’, which he tells us is unprecedented in the history of mankind. The language escapes us."
And it was all done and planned with sheer hatred, rather than any necessities of wartime or any other sort, as they might insinuate in conversations whether personal or on internet -
"...the gates of the infamous Wannsee Villa, where on one day on January 1942, decisions were made that would ramp up the fate of European Jewry, and to use the language of the perpetrators, the ‘Final Solution to the Jewish Question’ would be decided once and for all.
"But make no mistake. The genocide of the Jews was already very well underway. But it was with the invasion of the Soviet Union that for the Nazi hierarchy, efforts among various government bureaucratic agencies would have to be coordinated. Here, at this beautiful mansion on a sailboat-dotted lake, with its manicured grounds and gardens, the intentionality of the Holocaust hits you square in the face and takes your breath away."
"....A troubling photograph is on display here—‘Einsatzkommando 12b of Einsatzgruppe D kills Jewish women and children in a pit, Dubossary, Moldova/Transnistria, 14 Sept. 1941.’’—Twenty or so soldiers with rifles are shooting down into a ditch; through the tall grasses we see the target figures, as officers stand on and watch, or walk past in the foreground. It was taken just seven weeks after the blitzkrieg steamrolled into Soviet territory in the largest land and air invasion of the history of the world. Now that the Soviet Union had been invaded, there were millions more Jews in the path of the genocidal war machine; the Holocaust here was carried out by Germans with bullets. Entire villages and districts were murdered, with over 1.5 million victims. The dirty work gets done; the earth atop the covered-over pits undulates for three days.[18] It is remarkably ‘efficient’—between June and December, 1941, 3000 men have killed between 600,000 and 700,000 persons[19]—but given the ‘trauma’ for the shooters engaged in face-to-face mass murder, the thinking is, ‘there has to be a better way’. And to dispel another myth, there is no known instance where those few Germans who refused to take part in the killings were shot or otherwise severely punished—because some did ask to be relieved, and they were.[*]
"The SS bought the mansion in 1941 for a series of planned rest and recreation centers for its officers. Reich Security chief and SS General Reinhard Heydrich took a fancy to it, and on January 20, 1942, fifteen German military and government heads met for a day to discuss the Jewish problem. As scholars have noted, the Wannsee Conference was not called to decide the fate of European Jews, but to clarify all points regarding their demise. To put it another way, the intent was there, but with events on the warfront ratcheting up, the fact was highlighted that there was no blueprint for the murder of millions—and that because there was no precedent like this in history, on some level the Germans had been ‘making it up as they went along’. Mass murder was already underway, and the process now needed refinement, decision making, and coordination.
"On that January day, Heydrich and his henchman Adolf Eichmann indicated to the gathered group that approximately 11,000,000 Jews in Europe would fall under the provisions of the ‘Final Solution.’ Deploying carefully coded euphemisms—‘evacuation’, ‘resettlement’, ‘special treatment’, etc.—logistics were discussed as plans were made for major gassing centers in occupied Poland. Once mass deportations were completed, the ‘Final Solution’ would be under total SS jurisdiction. With that matter ‘settled’, secondary decisions revolved around revisiting the legal definitions of degrees of ‘Jewishness’ established at the Nuremberg Laws of 1935.
"The conference lasted perhaps 90 minutes. Just one copy of the carefully coded minutes turned up after the war and was subsequently used at the Nuremberg Tribunals. We may have been in the building longer than the criminals who plotted the destruction of European Jewry 75 years ago. And Heydrich almost got what he wanted."
So the excuses about having to obey orders due to fear of reprisals are only that - plausible stories readily swallowed by those that lack courage to condemn the living criminals for justice to the dead victims. And thus too is discussed, but not entirely honestly:-
"Here in Germany, we turn to the question of the role of the ordinary German person in Nazi Germany. In Matthias’s opinion, the majority of Germans at the time supported the master race theory. What disturbs him today is that in his opinion, few of his fellow countrymen seem conscious of this. It is a very complex topic.
"The historians talk about the mass crimes, and in Matthias’s words, they work on thin ice; the responses to the Holocaust run in a range. Some people want to know more—after all, many of them learned nothing about it from their teachers, many of whom were bystanders or even perpetrators.[*] Some quietly deny the extent—but as I am careful to lay out in this book, a person will find that the more he or she is willing to study it, the more he/she will learn how vast and almost unbelievable the topic is in scope. Others are tired of the topic—‘Yes, it happened. So what? Enough…’"
No, the "few of his fellow countrymen seem conscious of this" is simply a dishonest denial, in face of kniwledge that one isn't supposed to say it, but the attitude about a master race is far from over, and it merely assumes that perhaps the master race epithet might be extended to cover more of European ancestry descent, specifically West and North Europe, not just the central Europethat was mostly Germany, but that one can only convey this in unsaid behaviour when in presence of those not so included, although one may indicate it in other ways, such as condescending advice about how they should run their countries and so forth as per opinions of any member of master race. Or they might complain to someone supposedly not quite familiar, about how the Jews stop talking to a German who was not born when it all happened.
"....nearly 200,000 persons passed through the camp gates. Hiding in plain sight? ‘We did not know’, becomes the familiar refrain, after the war."
Of course, antisemitism wasn't limited to Germany, Poland had enough of it :-
"In the 15th and 16th centuries, Poland was the center of European Jewish life. In fact, at the end of the 18th century, 75% of the world’s Jews lived in the former Galicia, where we are, once part of Poland, Ukraine and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Still, in most places in Poland there is nothing left of this heritage; out of what was once millions, today only between 12,000 and 14,000 Jews call Poland home. And let’s not forget that after the war, Jewish survivors were not exactly welcomed back by their neighbors with open arms.
"There was no memorial here at Belzec for nearly 60 years. When Ariela visited in 1993, there was nothing here; it had reverted to forested hillside. The women in our group enter the memorial for a private ceremony. The seven men walk the perimeter, near the hillside. It’s said that during the actions, some of the locals would gather on the hillside behind us as transports pulled in to discharge the terrified and doomed victims.
"They would watch. And after the German attempt to destroy the site and hide the evidence of a half a million gassed and cremated, this site, like many others, would be rifled for gold, pockmarked with shovel pits by the local population. Surely those Jews had gold with them, when they were killed."
Later, when the author visits Majdanek,
"We exit the building. Two young Polish women with a stroller casually pass us, chatting—they are cutting through Majdanek to take a shortcut to the Catholic cemetery on the outside of the camp memorial complex. The irony is not lost on the group.
"Nervous about the recent uprisings at Treblinka, Sobibor, the Warsaw and Vilna ghettos and elsewhere, the SS chief Himmler ordered the murder of the Jewish slave laborers in and around the camp, including the camp at Poniatow.
"Code named ‘Aktion Erntefest’ (Operation Harvest Festival), the SS and police auxiliaries shot them in the ditches I am standing before; they played loud music through loudspeakers to drown out the noise, to disguise the gunshots for the folks back in the town. The shootings went on all day, the largest single-day and single-location massacre known to have occurred in the Holocaust.[28] Over 33,000 were murdered on that chilly Wednesday in November, 18,500 right here, right before me. .....
"Now we are under the dome, that stupid-looking flying saucer. We are in it, looking down on a mound the size of a small house. And as the realization dawns, now comes the shock that nearly knocks me over, the high tension electrical jolt that poor saps must feel when they realize they are suddenly in a very personal episode of the Twilight Zone—this dumb-looking saucer roof is covering something I instantly recognize—and I don’t need a sign for this. As a trained avocational archaeologist, I have excavated this material more than a few times, though not the human type, or anywhere near this magnitude.
"Calcified bone fragments, bone powder, and burned earth. Literally tons of it; I am looking at a mountain of burned bone. It’s a giant urn, an open-air mausoleum—I am face-to-face with cremated human remains. Bleached, white, and gray from superheat. How many thousands of human beings are in front of me? One of the most respected Holocaust scholars has suggested 50,000. A guess. There is a Catholic cemetery across the way, outside the gate. I suppose you could get an accurate count of the dead who lay there.
"And if there are any words to be spoken here in Majdanek, they would be outflanked and interrupted in some kind of twisted irony by the squeaking of the wheels of the baby stroller trespassing its way through the camp—yes, maybe a symbol of life in this monument to the dead, but more aptly a metaphor for the present, willful yet oblivious, dodging and darting the presence of the past."
Another child, may 1940, in Gennep, Holland, having been left there with his relatives for safety after kristallnacht, while his mother went to UK managing to catch the last ship and barely managing to meet the child separated for a while, now seeing the invasion :-
"...My experience with German soldiers with few exceptions would be that, at best, they did not care, but usually they would be very brutal and uncivilized. For a child, these experiences were confusing; I was never sure what to expect from my encounters with German soldiers.
"Gennep was under German control almost immediately. Because the Netherlands was supposed to be a neutral country, it had only a small army, and after five days the army surrendered. Rotterdam had been bombed, with many civilian casualties, as a warning not to resist the invaders."
This last bit is so very like the policy used brutally, ruthlessly and invariably, by Chingis Khan with his Mongols invading on horseback from Mongolia all the way across Russia and more, that one is struck with his very apt the Allies' description or characterisation of Germans, especially when in war, is "Hun"!
The siblings went, Germany to Gennep, Holland, to Dinxperlo, to Westerbrok where they were shifted to an orphanage, where it was better than the camp.
".. November 16th, 1943. The camp was very crowded, ..about 25,000 people. It was Monday evening and the train stood ready to go east the next morning. About 2500 Jews were supposed to be deported that day. ... in Auschwitz, all the children, ..., were sent to the gas chambers. There were no survivors."
"We were a ragged group with tattered clothes, damaged even more when we pulled off the Jewish star that we had worn all those years.
"The Germans did not want the local population to know who we were. Many people were almost barefoot as we no longer had decent shoes. We walked unnoticed through the town of Bergen; the inhabitants in the houses on both sides of the road had their shutters closed. Some people in our column fell and were left by the wayside. Then, suddenly a small girl fell, and a German guard hurriedly picked her up and helped her to move on. I noticed the guard was crying. I had never before noticed any German guard having sympathy for the children in the camp even though many children were starving to death or dying of typhus. So why was this German guard crying? Did he suddenly take pity on this young girl? Or was he upset when he realized it was all over and Germany was going to lose the war?"
The part one finds significant amongst others being about the shutters of the town being closed, in view of the constant refrain heard from Germans generally about how nobody knew of what went on!
Another quote from a survivor, as the story - or rather, the series of accounts by various survivors - gets close to the cover photograph moment:-
"On the sixth day of our journey, April 12, a Thursday afternoon, we were about fifteen kilometers from Magdeburg, a city on the Elbe River about halfway between Berlin and Hannover. The train stopped on a curve near a bridge over the river, which wasn’t unusual, since a red light frequently stopped the train for a short period. This time, however, there wasn’t any movement. We later found out that the Nazis had devised a new plan—they wanted to position the train on the bridge and blow it up so that they could both kill us and stop the Allied advance. Somehow though, the engineer and his assistant had gotten wind of the plan. They, too, must have heard the rumbling explosions from the front line and realized that the end of the war was imminent. Not wanting to die, they just ran off while the train was stopped at the red light, leaving the train and its cargo behind."
But no, it wasn't that easy. Other nazis turned up, and
"April 12, 1945. We now reached the most crucial hour of our life during World War II under German Nazi rule. From each and every truck, a Jewish leader was asked to appear before a high-ranking SS officer, who issued a disastrous order that we immediately carried out. All men between the ages of sixteen and sixty were to line up in columns of five in front of the cattle trucks, with the angels of death fluttering around.
"A paralyzing darkness seized me. They were going to gun down the men with machine guns in front of the cattle cars, and then blow up the rest of us—babies, small children, women and the elderly—in the cattle cars. That was the decree that the Nazi beast devised when its hour of doom came—our SS captors decided to annihilate us all."
This was the day that FDR, suddenly and unexpectedly, died, and there was a short lived jubilation in Berlin hoping for the predicted turn that was ruined by the Russian advances into Vienna shortly.
"There were no secrets. Hitler laid out his plans all along as he developed the party platform. Simple answers to complex problems. But while the insidiousness of the invective struck fear in the hearts of the fractional minority of Germans who were Jews, no one could predict just how far this madness would go. No one could believe that in a short six years, two-thirds of European Jewry would be murdered by the Nazis and their willing accomplices.
"How could this happen? Like many infections, the terror incubated slowly and innocuously from the dregs of society; from the gutters of Munich rose up a movement that proclaimed glory and greatness, revenge and revolution. Setbacks would occur, but struggle is the father of all things, after all. From the pain and the suffering a new race of mankind would emerge. The weak would give way to the strong, and from the blood of the martyrs of the movement Germany would be purified and reconciled on its destined plane of glory. All hail, victory. Sieg Heil."
And, short but succinct answers to most questions about the predicament of Jews of Germany of the era:-
"The window for escape is also rapidly shrinking; Jews find it difficult to obtain passports for travel abroad. But the discrimination is incremental, so the question begged, should they leave? After all, this is their rightful home, Germany. Surely, the injustice will be righted when the world steps in or a new government comes to power. Who could possibly imagine the slave labor factories, the killing fields and forests, the industrialized mass murder, and the complicity of the ordinary man—even the neighbors—in the horrors to come?
"Increasingly, Jews were being also impoverished by the state. Jews were now required to register their property and non-Aryan businesses were taken over by other Germans, the pitiful compensation set by the state. Jewish doctors could not treat non-Jews, and Jewish lawyers lost their occupation. Who could afford to leave? Discounting the rampant antisemitism of the day, most nations had extremely rigid immigration policies, and at the international Evian Conference held at the French resort in 1938, almost every nation involved turned its back and refused to reconsider their immigration policies in the wake of an obviously humanitarian crisis. ... Where would they go?"
When confronted by questions of visitors or migrants in Germany, those assigned officially to respond resort to subterfuge or outright lies, perhaps not so instructed officially but as a routine anyway, and have a series of layers of lies ready, as habitual with liers - from "Jews left and migrated" to "we did not know", of course. Few have the accidental honesty of revealing to someone unfamiliar with church propaganda that Jews were being targeted via every pulpit, falsely if course, as responsible for crucifixion, and thus a racist hatred was nurtured in guise of piety that served to disguise later persecution of excellence by lumpen, of educated by those unwilling to work their minds, of knowledgeable by the ignorant.
The terminology, one doesn't realise, isn't impartial either:-
"The preeminent scholars of the Holocaust tell us that the Holocaust began on January 30, 1933, the day that Hitler came to power. They will also agree that the word ‘holocaust’, from the Greek referring to a burnt offering to the gods at the temple, is a now considered an inadequate name, and perhaps on some levels, inappropriate. ... Saul Friedländer sees it as an event that is impossible to put into normal language. Raul Hilberg, in his groundbreaking work at the beginning of the 1960s, called it the ‘Jewish Catastrophe’ or destruction; in Hebrew, ‘HaShoah’. Yehuda Bauer, who first classified it as the watershed event that it is, still struggles with the label ‘Holocaust’ and falls back on the ‘genocide of the Jewish people’, which he tells us is unprecedented in the history of mankind. The language escapes us."
And it was all done and planned with sheer hatred, rather than any necessities of wartime or any other sort, as they might insinuate in conversations whether personal or on internet -
"...the gates of the infamous Wannsee Villa, where on one day on January 1942, decisions were made that would ramp up the fate of European Jewry, and to use the language of the perpetrators, the ‘Final Solution to the Jewish Question’ would be decided once and for all.
"But make no mistake. The genocide of the Jews was already very well underway. But it was with the invasion of the Soviet Union that for the Nazi hierarchy, efforts among various government bureaucratic agencies would have to be coordinated. Here, at this beautiful mansion on a sailboat-dotted lake, with its manicured grounds and gardens, the intentionality of the Holocaust hits you square in the face and takes your breath away."
"....A troubling photograph is on display here—‘Einsatzkommando 12b of Einsatzgruppe D kills Jewish women and children in a pit, Dubossary, Moldova/Transnistria, 14 Sept. 1941.’’—Twenty or so soldiers with rifles are shooting down into a ditch; through the tall grasses we see the target figures, as officers stand on and watch, or walk past in the foreground. It was taken just seven weeks after the blitzkrieg steamrolled into Soviet territory in the largest land and air invasion of the history of the world. Now that the Soviet Union had been invaded, there were millions more Jews in the path of the genocidal war machine; the Holocaust here was carried out by Germans with bullets. Entire villages and districts were murdered, with over 1.5 million victims. The dirty work gets done; the earth atop the covered-over pits undulates for three days.[18] It is remarkably ‘efficient’—between June and December, 1941, 3000 men have killed between 600,000 and 700,000 persons[19]—but given the ‘trauma’ for the shooters engaged in face-to-face mass murder, the thinking is, ‘there has to be a better way’. And to dispel another myth, there is no known instance where those few Germans who refused to take part in the killings were shot or otherwise severely punished—because some did ask to be relieved, and they were.[*]
"The SS bought the mansion in 1941 for a series of planned rest and recreation centers for its officers. Reich Security chief and SS General Reinhard Heydrich took a fancy to it, and on January 20, 1942, fifteen German military and government heads met for a day to discuss the Jewish problem. As scholars have noted, the Wannsee Conference was not called to decide the fate of European Jews, but to clarify all points regarding their demise. To put it another way, the intent was there, but with events on the warfront ratcheting up, the fact was highlighted that there was no blueprint for the murder of millions—and that because there was no precedent like this in history, on some level the Germans had been ‘making it up as they went along’. Mass murder was already underway, and the process now needed refinement, decision making, and coordination.
"On that January day, Heydrich and his henchman Adolf Eichmann indicated to the gathered group that approximately 11,000,000 Jews in Europe would fall under the provisions of the ‘Final Solution.’ Deploying carefully coded euphemisms—‘evacuation’, ‘resettlement’, ‘special treatment’, etc.—logistics were discussed as plans were made for major gassing centers in occupied Poland. Once mass deportations were completed, the ‘Final Solution’ would be under total SS jurisdiction. With that matter ‘settled’, secondary decisions revolved around revisiting the legal definitions of degrees of ‘Jewishness’ established at the Nuremberg Laws of 1935.
"The conference lasted perhaps 90 minutes. Just one copy of the carefully coded minutes turned up after the war and was subsequently used at the Nuremberg Tribunals. We may have been in the building longer than the criminals who plotted the destruction of European Jewry 75 years ago. And Heydrich almost got what he wanted."
So the excuses about having to obey orders due to fear of reprisals are only that - plausible stories readily swallowed by those that lack courage to condemn the living criminals for justice to the dead victims. And thus too is discussed, but not entirely honestly:-
"Here in Germany, we turn to the question of the role of the ordinary German person in Nazi Germany. In Matthias’s opinion, the majority of Germans at the time supported the master race theory. What disturbs him today is that in his opinion, few of his fellow countrymen seem conscious of this. It is a very complex topic.
"The historians talk about the mass crimes, and in Matthias’s words, they work on thin ice; the responses to the Holocaust run in a range. Some people want to know more—after all, many of them learned nothing about it from their teachers, many of whom were bystanders or even perpetrators.[*] Some quietly deny the extent—but as I am careful to lay out in this book, a person will find that the more he or she is willing to study it, the more he/she will learn how vast and almost unbelievable the topic is in scope. Others are tired of the topic—‘Yes, it happened. So what? Enough…’"
No, the "few of his fellow countrymen seem conscious of this" is simply a dishonest denial, in face of kniwledge that one isn't supposed to say it, but the attitude about a master race is far from over, and it merely assumes that perhaps the master race epithet might be extended to cover more of European ancestry descent, specifically West and North Europe, not just the central Europethat was mostly Germany, but that one can only convey this in unsaid behaviour when in presence of those not so included, although one may indicate it in other ways, such as condescending advice about how they should run their countries and so forth as per opinions of any member of master race. Or they might complain to someone supposedly not quite familiar, about how the Jews stop talking to a German who was not born when it all happened.
"....nearly 200,000 persons passed through the camp gates. Hiding in plain sight? ‘We did not know’, becomes the familiar refrain, after the war."
Of course, antisemitism wasn't limited to Germany, Poland had enough of it :-
"In the 15th and 16th centuries, Poland was the center of European Jewish life. In fact, at the end of the 18th century, 75% of the world’s Jews lived in the former Galicia, where we are, once part of Poland, Ukraine and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Still, in most places in Poland there is nothing left of this heritage; out of what was once millions, today only between 12,000 and 14,000 Jews call Poland home. And let’s not forget that after the war, Jewish survivors were not exactly welcomed back by their neighbors with open arms.
"There was no memorial here at Belzec for nearly 60 years. When Ariela visited in 1993, there was nothing here; it had reverted to forested hillside. The women in our group enter the memorial for a private ceremony. The seven men walk the perimeter, near the hillside. It’s said that during the actions, some of the locals would gather on the hillside behind us as transports pulled in to discharge the terrified and doomed victims.
"They would watch. And after the German attempt to destroy the site and hide the evidence of a half a million gassed and cremated, this site, like many others, would be rifled for gold, pockmarked with shovel pits by the local population. Surely those Jews had gold with them, when they were killed."
Later, when the author visits Majdanek,
"We exit the building. Two young Polish women with a stroller casually pass us, chatting—they are cutting through Majdanek to take a shortcut to the Catholic cemetery on the outside of the camp memorial complex. The irony is not lost on the group.
"Nervous about the recent uprisings at Treblinka, Sobibor, the Warsaw and Vilna ghettos and elsewhere, the SS chief Himmler ordered the murder of the Jewish slave laborers in and around the camp, including the camp at Poniatow.
"Code named ‘Aktion Erntefest’ (Operation Harvest Festival), the SS and police auxiliaries shot them in the ditches I am standing before; they played loud music through loudspeakers to drown out the noise, to disguise the gunshots for the folks back in the town. The shootings went on all day, the largest single-day and single-location massacre known to have occurred in the Holocaust.[28] Over 33,000 were murdered on that chilly Wednesday in November, 18,500 right here, right before me. .....
"Now we are under the dome, that stupid-looking flying saucer. We are in it, looking down on a mound the size of a small house. And as the realization dawns, now comes the shock that nearly knocks me over, the high tension electrical jolt that poor saps must feel when they realize they are suddenly in a very personal episode of the Twilight Zone—this dumb-looking saucer roof is covering something I instantly recognize—and I don’t need a sign for this. As a trained avocational archaeologist, I have excavated this material more than a few times, though not the human type, or anywhere near this magnitude.
"Calcified bone fragments, bone powder, and burned earth. Literally tons of it; I am looking at a mountain of burned bone. It’s a giant urn, an open-air mausoleum—I am face-to-face with cremated human remains. Bleached, white, and gray from superheat. How many thousands of human beings are in front of me? One of the most respected Holocaust scholars has suggested 50,000. A guess. There is a Catholic cemetery across the way, outside the gate. I suppose you could get an accurate count of the dead who lay there.
"And if there are any words to be spoken here in Majdanek, they would be outflanked and interrupted in some kind of twisted irony by the squeaking of the wheels of the baby stroller trespassing its way through the camp—yes, maybe a symbol of life in this monument to the dead, but more aptly a metaphor for the present, willful yet oblivious, dodging and darting the presence of the past."
Another child, may 1940, in Gennep, Holland, having been left there with his relatives for safety after kristallnacht, while his mother went to UK managing to catch the last ship and barely managing to meet the child separated for a while, now seeing the invasion :-
"...My experience with German soldiers with few exceptions would be that, at best, they did not care, but usually they would be very brutal and uncivilized. For a child, these experiences were confusing; I was never sure what to expect from my encounters with German soldiers.
"Gennep was under German control almost immediately. Because the Netherlands was supposed to be a neutral country, it had only a small army, and after five days the army surrendered. Rotterdam had been bombed, with many civilian casualties, as a warning not to resist the invaders."
This last bit is so very like the policy used brutally, ruthlessly and invariably, by Chingis Khan with his Mongols invading on horseback from Mongolia all the way across Russia and more, that one is struck with his very apt the Allies' description or characterisation of Germans, especially when in war, is "Hun"!
The siblings went, Germany to Gennep, Holland, to Dinxperlo, to Westerbrok where they were shifted to an orphanage, where it was better than the camp.
".. November 16th, 1943. The camp was very crowded, ..about 25,000 people. It was Monday evening and the train stood ready to go east the next morning. About 2500 Jews were supposed to be deported that day. ... in Auschwitz, all the children, ..., were sent to the gas chambers. There were no survivors."
January 30, 2021
4.25 stars
This was written by a high school history teacher who became deeply involved in the pursuit of the stories of the soldiers and the survivors of the Train Near Magdeburg after spending some tile talking with Judge Carol Walsh in the home of the judge's daughter in 2001 shortly after the judge turned 80. They had been talking about WWII and were about to get up when the judge's daughter asked if he had told the author about the train. It was this that seemed to put the author on a crusade to find the survivors of that train and the soldiers who arrived just in time to save most of the trains cargo of Jews that were on their way to be eliminated by the Nazis who were instructed to move the train onto the nearby bridge and blow it up.
The author tracked down survivors of the train and American soldiers who arrived at the train on 13 Apr 1945 and recorded the stories from their memories of living in Germany as Hitler came into power, the beginning of his effort to purge the Jews, the Ghettos, the death camps, the arrival of American soldiers at the train, the efforts to save the victims, the hospital, and the near starvation of the victims. The story is told through these interviews, writings, and accounts. There is some narrative history added by the author relative to concurrent events and background.
The book is divided into four parts, which he calls Book One through Book Four. Book One is made up primarily of the stories of the survivors up to the time of the train stopping. Books Two and Three take the reader through the discovery of the train by the American soldiers, what they saw, how they helped the people, and how some had to leave to continue to fight the Nazi forces.
Book Four gets into a lot of the reunions that the author set up and facilitated, as well as presentations by survivors and soldiers at his school and some other locations. After that, he starts putting in more stories that he obtained after some of those meetings. While these were good, relevant information, it would have been better for the flow of the historical narrative if the stories had all been put in chronological order so the reader is not "jumping" back in time to put the pieces together the way the events took place.
It is very enlightening and interesting to read the personal memories of the survivors of the Holocaust and the soldiers who lived through the events. Lest we forget, it is good to read of the effects that Hitler's policies had and the torture and pain that accompanied daily life among the Jews of Germany, Poland, Hungary, and Holland.
This book could have easily been 50 pages (or more) shorter and still have told the pertinent stories. The author inserted himself into the story beyond the level that added to the narrative and, in fact, detracted from the real story. There are 10 pages about how he went to college, his girlfriend at the time, how he failed in teaching the first year, and how he landed as a high school history teacher. This could have easily been left out of the middle of the book and put in an appendix called, "About the Author, Letters, Notes, and Personal Feelings". The story about how he first met Walsh, thus getting started on the projects that led to this book, is certainly relevant. It is interesting to read about the different museums, sites, and what they look like today. It is great to hear about the reunions of the survivors, the soldiers, and their families. The self accolades of the author become a bit tedious at times. There are accounts of trips he took to the sites, museums, and universities that discuss how they made him feel, his "questions" about the meaning of it, and philosophies that can be skipped without diminishing the effect of the real story of the book.
The story is one that needed to be told and should be read and remembered. The huge lessons of history are often the ones that show us what NOT to do. The author is to be commended for his interest in the history and in facilitating the reunions, meetings, and face to face teaching opportunities afforded students who were able to meet the men and women who had lived through those trying and tragic times.
I would recommend this book.
This was written by a high school history teacher who became deeply involved in the pursuit of the stories of the soldiers and the survivors of the Train Near Magdeburg after spending some tile talking with Judge Carol Walsh in the home of the judge's daughter in 2001 shortly after the judge turned 80. They had been talking about WWII and were about to get up when the judge's daughter asked if he had told the author about the train. It was this that seemed to put the author on a crusade to find the survivors of that train and the soldiers who arrived just in time to save most of the trains cargo of Jews that were on their way to be eliminated by the Nazis who were instructed to move the train onto the nearby bridge and blow it up.
The author tracked down survivors of the train and American soldiers who arrived at the train on 13 Apr 1945 and recorded the stories from their memories of living in Germany as Hitler came into power, the beginning of his effort to purge the Jews, the Ghettos, the death camps, the arrival of American soldiers at the train, the efforts to save the victims, the hospital, and the near starvation of the victims. The story is told through these interviews, writings, and accounts. There is some narrative history added by the author relative to concurrent events and background.
The book is divided into four parts, which he calls Book One through Book Four. Book One is made up primarily of the stories of the survivors up to the time of the train stopping. Books Two and Three take the reader through the discovery of the train by the American soldiers, what they saw, how they helped the people, and how some had to leave to continue to fight the Nazi forces.
Book Four gets into a lot of the reunions that the author set up and facilitated, as well as presentations by survivors and soldiers at his school and some other locations. After that, he starts putting in more stories that he obtained after some of those meetings. While these were good, relevant information, it would have been better for the flow of the historical narrative if the stories had all been put in chronological order so the reader is not "jumping" back in time to put the pieces together the way the events took place.
It is very enlightening and interesting to read the personal memories of the survivors of the Holocaust and the soldiers who lived through the events. Lest we forget, it is good to read of the effects that Hitler's policies had and the torture and pain that accompanied daily life among the Jews of Germany, Poland, Hungary, and Holland.
This book could have easily been 50 pages (or more) shorter and still have told the pertinent stories. The author inserted himself into the story beyond the level that added to the narrative and, in fact, detracted from the real story. There are 10 pages about how he went to college, his girlfriend at the time, how he failed in teaching the first year, and how he landed as a high school history teacher. This could have easily been left out of the middle of the book and put in an appendix called, "About the Author, Letters, Notes, and Personal Feelings". The story about how he first met Walsh, thus getting started on the projects that led to this book, is certainly relevant. It is interesting to read about the different museums, sites, and what they look like today. It is great to hear about the reunions of the survivors, the soldiers, and their families. The self accolades of the author become a bit tedious at times. There are accounts of trips he took to the sites, museums, and universities that discuss how they made him feel, his "questions" about the meaning of it, and philosophies that can be skipped without diminishing the effect of the real story of the book.
The story is one that needed to be told and should be read and remembered. The huge lessons of history are often the ones that show us what NOT to do. The author is to be commended for his interest in the history and in facilitating the reunions, meetings, and face to face teaching opportunities afforded students who were able to meet the men and women who had lived through those trying and tragic times.
I would recommend this book.
June 30, 2023
Several years ago at Christmas, my wife and I were walking along Park Avenue in Winter Park, one of the more elegant stretches of pavement in Central Florida, and I posed to her an impossible scenario. What would either of us do if a van of armed men pulled up outside that store across the street, then stormed into it abruptly, opening fire at innocent employees and customers? Speaking with personalized bravado, my instinct, I said, was to run toward the store and pull people down, out of the line of fire. But would I have really done that? Or would I have stayed low to the ground and watched it all unfold, knowing there was nothing I could do, myself, to stop a tidal wave of violence? No one really knows how they'll react to an unexpected, fearful situation until they're there, in it. So there's no way of telling, for sure, whether courage or cowardice would prevail. But these are the scenarios and questions that we're forced to answer for ourselves every single time we open a book about the Holocaust, about genocide, about gruesome acts of violence so disconcerting that they seem unreal. Why did good people do nothing? Why did they watch children, women, neighbors get marched or beaten or killed right in front of them and say nothing? Would I have been one of them? Or would I have tried to help? Unfortunately, while I don't think Matthew Rozell's book offers up any real answers, I do think it's a necessary portrait, a record, of not only what happened, but how the lack of assistance from regular people affected Holocaust victims at such a deep, psychological level, sometimes far beyond the physical wounds they bore.
If you can set aside the disjointed approach of Rozell's writing--unsure at times whether you're still reading the words of a survivor, a soldier, or the author himself--this is a compelling catalog of memories, and of the crucial role that education continues to play in the work of historical accountability. Living in a time, now, where American antisemitism has grown louder than at any other time in my life, it's hard to read works like this and not come out the other side asking the same questions that Rozell tried to work through in his own journey, because they're still as unresolved and unsettling, now, as they have been at any time since we began to analyze the Holocaust.
If you can set aside the disjointed approach of Rozell's writing--unsure at times whether you're still reading the words of a survivor, a soldier, or the author himself--this is a compelling catalog of memories, and of the crucial role that education continues to play in the work of historical accountability. Living in a time, now, where American antisemitism has grown louder than at any other time in my life, it's hard to read works like this and not come out the other side asking the same questions that Rozell tried to work through in his own journey, because they're still as unresolved and unsettling, now, as they have been at any time since we began to analyze the Holocaust.
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