A high school oral history project in Hudson Falls, New York, led to the documentation of a little-known event from World War II involving the liberation of a train carrying 2,500 Jewish prisoners. The survivors, who were being transported from the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp to another facility, were intercepted by American soldiers near Magdeburg, Germany, on April 13, 1945.
The story emerged in 2001 when history teacher Matt Rozell interviewed Carrol Walsh, a retired U.S. Army sergeant. During the recorded interview, Walsh described encountering the train on a "beautiful April day" while his unit was advancing through Germany. He recalled seeing people in a "very distressed state" inside the train cars.
According to James Bulgin, head of public history at the Imperial War Museum in London, the prisoners were "on the brink of death" at the time of their liberation. Bulgin stated that although the train was being moved to a different location, a plan had emerged to kill the prisoners once the German forces realized they could not reach their destination due to the chaos at the end of the war.
Among the survivors was Peter Lantos, who was five years old when he and his mother were placed on the train. Lantos, who later became a neuroscientist, reported that he lost 21 family members during the Holocaust, including his father who died of starvation at Bergen-Belsen.
The documentation of this event affects remaining Holocaust survivors and their families by preserving specific accounts of survival and liberation. It is estimated that of the 200,000 survivors of the Holocaust still living, half will be deceased within the next five to seven years. For these individuals and their descendants, the discovery of records like the 1945 photos taken by soldier Clarence J. Benjamin provides visual evidence of their personal histories.
The project has resulted in the publication of the book "A Train Near Magdeburg" and a documentary film. The Imperial War Museum has integrated this specific story into its Holocaust galleries.
Following the 2001 interview, Rozell heard from dozens of other survivors and liberators. Upcoming work related to documenting survivors includes the documentary "A Train Near Magdeburg" by filmmaker Mike Edwards, and the work of photographer Gillian Laub, who has completed over 300 portraits of survivors for a project titled "Live2Tell."