by Rona Arato
Survivors in a barrack at Bergen Belsen on the day the camp was liberated, April 15, 1945.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Lev Sviridov
A woman and a boy lie on a bunk at Bergen Belsen.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Hadassah Bimko Rosensaft
Survivors walk past a massive pile of victims’ shoes at Bergen Belsen. These are shoes that were discarded after people were killed.
George C. Gross
A woman and her daughter emerge from the death train after being liberated on April 13th, 1945.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Harry E. Boll
A mother and her two sons sit in the sun outside the train after liberation.
George C. Gross
Survivors pose after being liberated. The soldier who took this photo, George Gross, was amazed at how quickly they were able to smile after all they’d been through.
(top) United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Flora Carasso Mihael (bottom) George C. Gross
Scenes showing the death train from Bergen Belsen on April 13th, 1945, as survivors pour out of it and rest on the nearby hillside.
George C. Gross
Fellow U.S. soldiers George Gross (left, the man who took many of these pictures) and Carrol Walsh pose together during the Second World War.
Tim Roske/AP Photo
“Give me a hug. You saved my life!” Paul Arato and Carrol Walsh embrace after meeting for the first time since the liberation.
Tim Roske/AP Photo
Survivors speak with veteran Carrol Walsh (second from right) at the American Soldiers/Holocaust Survivors Reunion in Hudson Falls, New York, September 22, 2009. Paul Arato is far right.
Author’s Note
I met Paul in 1967. He had graduated from Art Center College of Design and was working as a toy designer for Mattel Toys. I was teaching sixth grade, so dating a toy designer was cool—a perfect fit. After visiting Israel, I had spent three months backpacking through Europe. On our first date I showed Paul pictures from my travels. One was of the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. Paul looked at it and said, “We were in the same camp.” I was stunned to realize he didn’t mean a summer camp. He meant the Bergen Belsen Concentration Camp.
Paul and I were married in 1968. What I didn’t realize at the time was that I was marrying the Holocaust as well. Even though he rarely spoke of his wartime experiences, it was always with us—in the way his mood would suddenly darken, in his nervous tension that never went away, or in his explosions of temper, like the time he shouted at an usher in a movie theater because the boy waved his flashlight and ordered us to line up against the wall.
Paul had never told his story to our three children, Alise, Debbie, and Daniel. In 1995, I became an interviewer for the Survivors of the Shoa Visual History Foundation, the project that Steven Spielberg founded to record stories of Holocaust survivors. I thought that interviewing other survivors would help me understand Paul. I eventually convinced him to be interviewed and it was by watching his interview tape that our children finally learned his story, including his liberation by the U.S. 9th Army. When Daniel found the article Matt Rozell had posted called “The Train near Magdeburg,” he sent me an email: “Mom, read this article and then show it to Dad.” I immediately recognized that this was the train from which Paul and his family were rescued.
At first, Paul was reluctant to contact Matt. He didn’t want to open old wounds. But I convinced him to send Matt an email. Once he did, and Frank Towers answered him, Paul couldn’t wait to meet his liberators.
The men of the 30th Infantry Division belong to what is called “The Greatest Generation.” These soldiers, along with all the Allied forces, fought to save the world from tyrants who would destroy our freedoms. They landed on the beaches of Normandy, fought ferocious battles in France, Belgium, and Germany. Yet they never lost their humanity. When they came upon a train filled with ragged, starving concentration camp survivors, they stopped and did not move on until every person from that train was fed, clothed, housed, and for those who needed it, had received medical attention.
It was by chance that Matt Rozell learned of their story. The program that he started as a simple high-school history project continues to grow and has changed his life and the lives of those it touches. In 2009, the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution chose Mr. Rozell as the New York State Outstanding Teacher of American History, and in 2012 he received their highest national education award, the Mary Smith Lockwood Founders’ Medal for Education. In 2010, he was selected by United States Holocaust Memorial Museum to participate in the National Days of Remembrance ceremonies at the U.S. Capitol Rotunda with General David Petraeus and 171 American soldier liberators to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the end of World War II. In 2011, Mr. Rozell traveled to Israel with Frank Towers and met over 65 survivors, and hundreds of their family members, whose lives have been affected by this project.
In telling this complex story, I have used the facts as they were related to me by the people who lived it. I had the privilege of listening to the testimonies of soldiers and survivors at the Hudson Falls symposium and at two other reunions that Paul and I have attended. I’ve read many books and articles about the events of that dreadful time and the 115 interviews I conducted with Holocaust survivors gave me an all-too-vivid picture of what these people had to endure.
When writing a historical novel, however, one must sometimes fill in the gaps. The scenes are the way Paul and others described them to me. The dialogue is what I believe they would have said. Though these are not their exact words, I hope I have captured their truth. The Auslanders, Feins (Aunt Bella, Magdi, and Kati), Uncle Elemir, Matt Rozell, and the U.S. soldiers are real people. The characters of the Nazi guards are based on what I have read and been told.
A Note about the Exchange Camps and the Last Trains
Three trains left Bergen Belsen between April 6 and April 11, 1945. They were the last transports out of the camp before it was liberated by British soldiers on April 15 and, together, these trains carried about 6,700 people.
Although they didn’t know it at the time, these prisoners were a part of a group of over 20,000 Jews that Adolf Eichmann agreed to “put on ice” so they could be exchanged at some point for food, money, or German prisoners of war. They were deported to Strasshof, and then sent to work as slave laborers in factories and on farms.
In December 1944, 4,200 Hungarian Jews—those who had worked on farms—were sent to Bergen Belsen. They were housed in a section fenced off from the rest of the camp, known as the “Hungarian Camp.” Another larger, similar section—the “Star Camp”—had Jews from other countries who were to be exchanged. Paul had always wondered why the SS allowed them to keep the molasses that the farmers gave them. Now we know that conditions in these exchange camps were slightly better than in other sections. Children up to the age of 14 stayed with their mothers, and prisoners were allowed to wear their own clothes and keep their possessions.
Only a few hundred prisoners from those camps were actually exchanged. The rest ended up on the three trains. One train delivered its Jewish cargo to the Theresienstadt Concentration Camp, where survivors were liberated on May 8, 1945.
Another train seemed to drop off the map. It left Bergen Belsen on April 11 and spent two weeks zigzagging through Germany in an effort to avoid the approaching Allied armies. It was freed by the Russian army in the small German town of Tröbitz on April 23. Of the 2,700 people on that train, over 600 died during the trip and after liberation.
The train that the Auslanders were on left Bergen Belsen on April 9 and was liberated by American troops near Farsleben, Germany, on April 13. For over fifty years, copies of the pictures that George Gross took that day remained in a shoebox in Carrol Walsh’s closet. After his interview with Matt Rozell, he found them and Matt
posted them on his website. George Gross had said that what impressed him the most when he took the pictures were the brave smiles of the newly liberated children. In his own words:
I was assigned to stay overnight with the train, to let any stray German soldiers know that it was part of the free world and not to be bothered again. I was honored to shake the hands of the large numbers [of survivors] who spontaneously lined up to introduce themselves and greet me in a ritual that seemed to satisfy their need to declare their return to honored membership in the free society of humanity.
That ritual was repeated—this time with hugs and tears—over six decades later when survivors and soldiers reunited at the symposium in Hudson Falls High School.
Acknowledgments
First and foremost, I want to thank my husband, Paul, for allowing me to tell his story. During the writing, his brother, Oscar, passed away, but I know that he gave his blessing to this project.
To Matt Rozell, all I can say is that you, too, are a hero. What an amazing job you have done bringing this story to light and to life. To the men of the 30th Infantry Division, bravo! You were heroes then and you are my heroes today. You helped save the world from a vicious regime and you did it with courage, humility, and a caring that continues to inspire us all. And a special thanks to Carrol Walsh, who brought this story to light, and Frank Towers, who continues to search for train survivors that he calls “his children.”
To the survivors of the train near Magdeburg, I salute you. You have endured the worst that life can throw at you and you have not only survived, you have thrived. Among your number are doctors, lawyers, university professors, child psychiatrists, engineers, teachers, and an industrial designer. You have raised families and now enjoy the love of your children, grandchildren, and even some great-grandchildren. And that, as Paul says, is the best revenge of all.
My special thanks go to the team at Owlkids. From the start of this project, you have been encouraging and supportive. Through many revisions (I’ve lost count), name changes, and title changes you have continually assured me of the importance of this book. To my editor, John Crossingham, you have given me insightful advice and moral support and stayed calm, even when I demanded to know why we needed another rewrite. My publisher, Jennifer Canham, has been a rock of encouragement throughout. I want to thank the Ontario Arts Council for its support while I was writing this book.
Special thanks to the Gross family for allowing me to use their father’s photos. They capture in a way that no words can the emotions of that unforgettable day. And my thanks to the researchers at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and to Elizabeth Banks for their valuable assistance.
And to my amazing children—Alise, Debbie, and Daniel—you have lived this story most of your lives. Growing up as children of a Holocaust survivor is not easy, but you have taken pains to learn about your father’s background and give him the love and support to deal with it. And, of course, you have given us both the best gifts of all—three gorgeous grandchildren—Cy, Samantha, and Tali. May they and their children and grandchildren grow up and live in a world where Holocausts do not happen.
About the Author
Rona Arato is an award-winning author and a teacher. She was born in New York and grew up in Los Angeles, where she attended UCLA and earned a BA in Education. She lives in Toronto and is a dual American and Canadian citizen. Rona began her writing career while her children were growing up. From 1994–1998, she interviewed Holocaust survivors for Steven Spielberg’s Survivors of the Shoa Visual History Foundation, an experience that helped her understand her husband’s background as a Holocaust survivor. Rona has since turned her attention to writing books for children, with a focus on human rights.
About the Publisher
Owlkids publishes entertaining, unique, high-quality books and magazines that nurture the potential of children and instill in them a love of reading and learning—about themselves and the world around them.
With numerous books and three magazines covering various age groups, Owlkids’ publications reach more than one million youngsters and their parents every year.
With engaging writing, bold graphics, and the best children’s authors, books from Owlkids are loved by parents, teachers, librarians, and—most importantly—kids!
