[04-23-2010]
The last of the three transports leaving Bergen-Belsen between 6th and 11th April 1945 went down in the annals of history as “lost train”, “lost transport” or “train of those lost”. About 6,700 people were on the three trains in all.
As so-called “Jews on exchange”, the train passengers had been accommodated in special sections at Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp, i.e. the “Star Camp” and the “Hungarians’ Camp”. The Nazis had contrived plans for the Jewish prisoners of the afore-mentioned camps to be replaced either with merchandise or foreign currency, or for captured Germans. A large number of the Jewish prisoners confined to the “Star Camp” came from the Netherlands, other Jews detained there were in the possession of foreign passports, e.g. from South America or North Africa. The percentage of those actually released among the Jews who had been taken to Bergen-Belsen expressly to be exchanged proved to be insignificant in the end. Or to cite numbers: On 10th July 1944, 222 Jews arrived at Haifa harbour presenting immigration permits. On 21st August 1944, 318 Jews from the “Hungarians’ Camp” reached Switzerland followed by another quota of 1,365 Jews in December 1944. On 25th January 1945, 136 Jews with South American passports managed to get to Switzerland. The rest of the “Jews on exchange” had to wait for their liberation or died just as other inmates did.
The first of the transports bound for Theresienstadt left Bergen-Belsen on 6th April 1945, its route running through Uelzen, Salzwedel and Stendal. On 13th April 1945, that transport was freed by American troops near Farsleben not far from Magdeburg.
The second train which in particular Hungarian Jews were deported on started out from Bergen-Belsen on 7th April and arrived at Theresienstadt on 21st April 1945. Theresienstadt was freed on 8th May 1945.
Having departed on 11th April, the third train was moving across Germany for two weeks – passing Soltau, Lüneburg and Büchen, and then heading for, and finally arriving at, Berlin on 18th April 1945. After leaving Berlin-Spandau, the train went to Neukölln and was obviously supposed to continue passing through Berlin. The trail of devastation stretching along the city made this route excruciatingly long, though. The train stopped off near the Berlin-Dresden highway, then went on heading for Finsterwalde and Falkenberg. This almost incessant moving back and forth imposed on the Jews coming from more than 12 countries was not terminated until 23rd April 1945, when the Red Army freed them near Tröbitz. More than 200 of the Jewish deportees failed to survive the odyssey. Whoever had died en route was buried hastily and superficially near the railway lines. And what is more: illness and emaciation the stresses and strains of that odyssey had caused them claimed the lives of another 320 people still after liberation.
The small community of Tröbitz came face to face with about 2,000 survivors of the Holocaust. The Red Army opened a commandant’s office in the place, and a sort of self-government was established for the survivors of the train. People were put up in a former huts camp for forced labourers and were given an own cemetery ground to bury their deceased fellow-sufferers. With the exception of one family, the survivors had left Tröbitz again by late August 1945.
Among the persons rescued from the lost train were Menachem and Mirjam Pinkhof who had been active and committed saviours of children’s lives from the Holocaust in the Netherlands. Other survivors of the transport in the “lost train” were Hannah Goslar, a schoolmate of Anne Frank, Renata Laqueur, who had become well known as linguist, and Jupp Weiss, the “Eldest of the Jews” in the “Star Camp”.
The Jewish cemetery dug in Tröbitz in 1945 is in the immediate vicinity of the Christian cemetery. In 1947, France demanded and achieved that the mortal remainder of 43 deceased was exhumed and transferred to burial places in their native lands. The remaining graves are marked by memorial slabs with the names and dates of the dead victims. Over the years, memorial stones and slabs were placed or erected along the route the transport train had taken at the time.
“So, my parents were staying in Bergen-Belsen together with the others from the group when we arrived there. They were supposed to stay there on interim only before being taken to Switzerland. The young man who waited on us with what was called ‘morning coffee’ had free access to the group of this ‘special transport’, too. He told us that there were more people from Cluj at Bergen-Belsen, and we found out: these people were our parents! That young man smuggled paper and pen for us, and we wrote them a note to make them know we were alive. My father who had been a major in the First World War and hoped the commanders would know the meaning of ‘honour’ went straight to the camp commandant and asked him: ‘My daughter is here. May I go to see her?’ The thing that happened next was: the daughter was sent to Fallersleben. The names of father, mother and son were erased from the list of the people reserved for the special transport and deported from Bergen-Belsen later on. My father died of meningitis at Tröbitz, my mother and brother managed to survive … My mother told me later on that the last words my father had spoken were: ‘Do not go home before you have found Julia.’ I am awfully sad that my father died.” (Julie Nicholson, in: Überleben in Angst. Vier Juden berichten über ihre Zeit im Volkswagenwerk in den Jahren 1943 bis 1945, Historical Notes. Papers Series of the Historical Communication of the “Volkswagen AG”, Number 12, Wolfsburg 22008)
At the ITS
The ITS is in the possession of comprehensive documentary material on the deportees and the graves’ registers in Tröbitz.
Web Tip
www.bergen-belsen.de
www.hagalil.com/archiv/2008/10/troebitz.htm
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