Rare video footage of Jews from train leaving Bergen-Belsen unearthed
In April 1945, American soldiers filmed Holocaust survivors who had been released from a train on their way to their death in a remote German village near the end of WWII
The rescue of Holocaust survivors from the train that left from Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, in 1945. Courtesy of U.S. National Archives
This article originally appeared on Haaretz, and was reprinted here with permission. Sign up here to get Haaretz’s free Daily Brief newsletter delivered to your inbox.
Rare video footage of Jewish Holocaust’s survivors’ moment of liberation on a train that had departed from the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp was recently found in the U.S. National Archives and made available online.
Filmed by American soldiers in April 1945, the video shows one of the three trains that left the concentration camp at the beginning of that month, as the Nazis hurried to dispose of the camp’s inmates towards the end of the war.
Since the faces of many of the survivors are visible in the video, members of their family may be able to identify them.
Of the three trains that departed from Bergen-Belsen, only one reached its destination of Theresienstadt, but dozens of its passengers were killed in an allied aerial bombardment. Another train, known as the “Lost Train,” traveled back and forth between the front lines, and was finally liberated by the Red Army.
The third train, featured in the video, left Bergen-Belsen on April 7 with 2,500 Jews from Hungary, Poland, Greece, and Slovakia. Most of them were “privileged,” Jews who were placed in the “special camp” at Bergen-Belsen, whose inmates were designated for potential exchange in prisoner swap transactions. Among the passengers were several famous individuals including Aliza Vitis-Shomron, from the Jewish Combat Organization and the author Uri Orlev.
After six days of travel, on April 13, the train was suddenly stopped near the German village of Farsleben, 17 kilometers (10.5 miles) from the city of Magdeburg. The German guards fled and American soldiers, who were nearby, approached the train and freed its passengers.
The newly revealed video shows the soldiers giving assistance to the stunned Holocaust survivors, some of whom later immigrated to Israel, while others dispersed throughout the world.
In recent years, the American historian Matt Rozell, has been conducting a comprehensive research project, in the course of which he has located dozens of still photographs of the moments of the liberation of the train. Rozell also managed to locate some of the survivors and American liberators and their families.
Following a report in Haaretz, the identity of a woman in an iconic photo of the train’s liberation became known.
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