North Charleston, SC – Robert Spitz was an emaciated, lice-infested 15-year-old when he was put on an overcrowded train at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in the waning days of World War II. He was sure it was a journey to death.
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Instead, it proved to be a trip to freedom as the train, moving prisoners before approaching Allied troops in April 1945, was abandoned by the Germans after five days and liberated by troops from the U.S. 30th Infantry Division.
On Friday, eight survivors of that horrific train ride attended an annual reunion that is held in different cities each year. The survivors shared stories and gave thanks with about 50 other people, including dozens of soldiers and their wives.
A number of them choked back tears during a memorial service when a brass bell sounded 80 times — once for each member of the Army division who died during the past year.
“As we marched out of the camp under SS guard, we were passing stacks of dead bodies. They were stacked like cordwood,” said Spitz, 79, a Jew who was arrested in Budapest, Hungary, and spent 13 months in the camp before being put on the train. He weighed 65 pounds at the time.
“Only God knew where we were going or what the future held for us,” said Spitz, who now lives in Fayetteville, Ark.
The train wandered for five days until it was abandoned near the town of Magdeburg, about 50 miles southwest of Berlin.
“When the American medics arrived they said, “You are free! You are free!” recalled Spitz. He said many on the train were too weak to move or even comprehend.
The train is thought to have carried 2,500 prisoners, and reunion organizers think as many as 400 may still be living. It included both passenger and cattle cars, which were used by the Germans to transport 40 soldiers. On this trip, however, those cattle cars were packed with 90 prisoners with no food or water.
“They were filthy. They were skin and bones. They were infested with lice,” said Frank Towers, 92, of Brooker, Fla., a first lieutenant who led a convoy on a 50-mile ride to a town where those on the train could be cared for. “For five days they were allowed out of the train for only an hour a day to eat. And that was water with potato skins — potato soup.”
John Fransman, 69, another train survivor, came from London for the reunion.
Originally from Amsterdam, he was just a child when he rode the hard, wooden seats in the passenger car with his mother. His father was executed in the concentration camp.
“I remember seeing the bodies of dead people every morning,” he said. “We very much lost our childhood.”
“I am very grateful to come here and express my thanks,” he said.
The reunion with the Holocaust survivors results from a project started by Matthew Rozell, a history teacher from Hudson Falls, N.Y. He posted a soldier’s account of the liberation on the Web in 2002 and survivors have found the site over the years.
To date, about 50 have been located, Rozell said. “They are all over the world. We want to find more,” he said.
The train was liberated on April 13, 1945, days before Bergen-Belsen, which is in northwestern Germany.
The Magdeburg train was one of three to leave the concentration camp in the last days of the war. One arrived at another German concentration camp in Czechoslovakia, while the third was intercepted by the Soviets.
We need to realize this special group is dieing off. Learn all we can from them before they are no more. Thank G-d so many are willing to speak about it, because we NEED to listen.
Very True, #1
But, also, we need to be careful to not marginalize them for lack of observance. These are our fellow Jews who have gone through tests and experiences BEYOND our capacities for understanding or imagining. We need to accept the, love them, and listen to them.
See the riteousness in their still admitting to being Jews. Many could not even do that. Many denied their Jewishnes after their liberation.
These who admit to being Jewish, may not be Shomer Shabbos, may not put on Tefillin, not eat kosher, but they are proud Jews, and we need to treat them with the respect they deserve.
I read with interest the news item.
I can give another perspective of these transits from Bergen Belsen.
I was on one of the three trains that left Bergen Belsen in April 1945. I was 6 at the time. We did not know it at the time, but we found out after we were liberated, that the train was destined for Theresienstadt in Czechoslovakia. the plan was to put us and the remaining inmates of Theresienstadt into a tunnel and kill us with poison gas–a method familiar to the Germans.
Our train travelled for about two weeks. The train would stop at various intervals. We never knew how long it would be between stops. At one such stop, my late other jumped off the train. She bartered some small items for a sach of potatoes. When she returned, the train had started to move. She literally had to climb onto the train while it was moving. [She had to get onto the train to take care of me].
We were eventually freed by the Russians in Tröbitz, Germany. We were told that we were free. We (at least myself) did not realize what this meant. A Russian officer (probably Jewish himself) told us that when we would be asked our nationality to answer French, Dutch or whatever, just not Jewish.
We were told that we could settle in any home we wished. We came into a house and the women of the house–the men either killed or in the army–were lined up in the kitchen. My mother asked them if there was any food. They said, no. Then my mother pushed them aside and found more food in the cabinets behind where they stood than we had seen during the whole war,
From Tröbitz we went to Leipzig and stayed in army buildings until all people were repatriated to their countries of origin. My mother and I, along with other people from Holland, were sent n a Red Cross train to the Netherlands. After being quarantined in Maastricht, a Dutch town near the German border, we were brought by army trucks to Amsterdam. I will never forget when we arrived in Amsterdam. It was a beautiful spring day in May 1945. The Dutch flag was flying everywhere along with the orange banner of Queen Wilhemina (who is from the House of Orange).