Never-before-seen footage of U.S. Army troops liberating 2,500 Jews from a Nazi death train during the waning days of World War II was recently uncovered by a Holocaust researcher from upstate New York.
Matthew Rozell, a former high school history teacher from Hudson Falls, New York, revealed the discovery in a July 29 blog post. Rozell said he was informed about the video by a source in Germany and received the footage a few weeks later after contacting the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington.
Rozell wrote the footage was taken by members of the U.S. Army Signal Corps on or about April 14, 1945. Although many photographs exist of the Farsleben Train, which was liberated by the U.S. Army's 743rd Tank Battalion and 30th Infantry Divsion, it is the first time that a film of survivors greeting their rescuers has emerged.
Rozell’s book, “A Train Near Magdeburg: A Teacher's Journey into the Holocaust,” details the liberation of the train and reunions with survivors and their liberators.
“What is fantastic is that this footage gives us a better perspective on liberation and its aftermath,” Rozell wrote. “Poignant and moving scenes: men crushing lice in their clothing. Families sprawled out, resting in the mid-April sunshine.
"Crowds swarming a soldier distributing food. … A father holding his young daughter up so she can witness, and also put her hand out with the others. People in obvious distress, some likely very sick, some so exhausted they can hardly make an expression for the cameraman.”
The Jerusalem Post reported Wednesday the train was one of three that left the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in northern Germany the previous week, bound for the Theresienstadt camp/ghetto in northwestern Czechoslovakia. Theresienstadt was a way station to extermination camps. Only one of the three trains arrived at Theresienstadt; the other was liberated by Soviet forces.
The Times of Israel reported Wednesday the train was forced to stop near the town of Farsleben because of bombings by allied forces in the area. Some on board escaped the train and met up with soldiers from the 30th Infantry Division, and the soldiers returned to liberate the rest of the survivors.
Hebrew media tracked down some of the train’s survivors living in Israel.
Jacob Barzilai, 90, spotted his 12-year-old self and his mother and sister.
“We arrived at Bergen-Belsen as five people and only three of us returned," He told the Ynet news outlet. "I lost my father and my grandfather there. In the clip, I saw my mother, my sister and myself. I was very emotional seeing the footage. I was at a loss for words.”
Miriam Mueller, 82, was just 4 years old when she was rescued from the train. Although she was unable to find herself in any of the new footage, she told Ynet: “It brought up all sorts of memories. I had a hard time breathing afterward.
"I said that this cursed war is just endless. We keep returning to it. Today, I have 26 grandchildren and 40 great-grandchildren, and there is another one on the way. The blessed Lord has performed a miracle with me.”
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