A Train Near Magdeburg

by Matthew Rozell

  ‘I’ll never forget today.’

  On Saturday, April 14, the sun rose as the newly liberated tended small fires to warm themselves and whatever food they had managed to scavenge from the countryside or the nearby town of Farsleben. Back at the train that Saturday morning, the 30th Division's liaison officer, Lt. Frank W. Towers, was charged with evacuating the refugees to a more appropriate and secure location, out of harm’s way. Accordingly, the twenty-seven-year-old Towers organized a convoy to travel the ten kilometers to the just captured town of Hillersleben, where a former German Luftwaffe base and proving ground was located, complete with barracks and a small hospital.

  Frank W. Towers

  As we were proceeding eastward from Brunswick, for days preceding [the liberation of the train], the roads were clogged with refugees fleeing from the east, to get out of the reach of the Russians. They were a tragic looking bunch of people, but happy to be escaping the clutches of the Russians, and to be greeting the Americans. They were carrying all of their worldly possessions in back packs, dragging carts of every variety. Through them, we gained a lot of intelligence on the disposition of German emplacements; they let us know where we might encounter enemy action, where artillery guns were located. [From them we learned of the existence of this train] and that [the Germans] were setting up an ambush for us when we approached the area. Thus, we sent the tanks of the 743rd Tank Battalion to reconnoiter the area prior to our foot troops. Upon their arrival at Farsleben, they did not encounter any enemy ambush, but were confronted with the train in the ravine.

  As the 30th Division’s liaison officer, I was told about the train initially by my counterpart, Lt. Floyd Mitchell, who was the liaison officer from the 743rd Tank Battalion, and as he was going back to his headquarters, he asked me if I would like to go with him to see [it]. I agreed to accompany him, and this was my first encounter with ‘The Holocaust,’ to witness all that we had heard about through the ‘propaganda’ [we had been told] in previous months—to see it with my own eyes, that our own Allied ‘propaganda’ was in fact true.

  [The main roads in some places were impassable, so] the trip from Farsleben to Hillersleben was mostly over narrow back roads and dirt farm roads, in order to get to the destination in the shortest time. Due to artillery shelling and too much recent rain they were full of muddy pot holes, and the vehicles had to travel very slowly, or cause breakdowns of the vehicles. The drivers were very well aware of the hazards of driving over this type of road, as they had done so many times before. Fortunately, during these days it did not rain any more. As I acquired the vehicles for the convoy, some were covered, and some were not, but to these people, it did not matter. Rain or shine, they were on the way to freedom, and although hungry, dehydrated, and in frail health, they felt that they were going to a better place than they had seen in many months. They were happy in knowing that they were going to a place where they could get food, sleeping space, and health assistance.

  As best I recall, we started moving these people in the afternoon, and we continued until dark, which at that time was not until after 10:00 p.m., so we halted operations until daylight the next morning, and continued on into the day until all were removed from Farsleben. I am not sure just who was involved in assisting the loading of the people at Farsleben, perhaps by some of the troops from our Engineer Battalion and some of the men of the American Military Government and Red Cross personnel, who also helped in unloading the people, orienting them as to where they were to go to get showers and new clothing, then feeding them and assigning them to appropriate quarters. Then their processing began as to who they were, where they had come from, their birthplace, and their hoped for destination. All of this of course took several weeks before they were all processed and shipped to their destinations.[62]

  Tech Sgt. Rice continued his written reports.

  Wilson Rice

  Saturday

  14 April 1945

  Around noon today the Germans shelled us from the other side of the Elbe River. Two of Company D’s men were hit, one in the knee and the other in the shoulder. A German colonel was captured yesterday, that pulled up the artillery of their general headquarters to the Elbe, and I guess that is what was firing on us. Our artillery soon found them and laid the ammunition to them.

  Today they brought in a wounded German who was nicked in the arm. One of the recaptured British soldiers looked up and recognized him as being one of the guards on their long march. The Britisher said that he would make the men stand naked in the snow, and that he marched at the rear of the column, and as the men would drop out, he would probe and hit them with the butt of his rifle. The German confessed that it was true, but said that he was carrying out orders. The Tommy said that he saw this Jerry kill two American soldiers on the march. He was well enough to be taken to the PW cage, and the Britishers wanted to take him. They were going to let them, but the officers changed the idea and wouldn’t let them do it. They kept him around here, and during the day, they gave him a good working over. ‘Slim,’ the Negro driver, was in charge. He had him out covering up a latrine with his hands.

  Casualties to date:

  Division24,686

  Civilian957

  Enemy2,091

  Other Units3,588

  31,322

  *

  Sunday

  15 April 1945

  This morning we were awakened, not by the man on duty, but by Jerries strafing and our ack-ack[*] letting go at them. I wish they wouldn’t begin their warfare so early in the morning. It is so annoying!

  The 2nd Armored Division and our [30th Division] 119th Infantry Regiment has been pushed back on this side of the river. Major Young was in the office today. It has been a long time since we have seen him, as the 119th has been with the 2nd Armored since crossing the Rhine. He said that the 3rd Battalion of the 119th really had it rough on the other side of the Elbe River; for example, out of one company, there were only five men left!

  The town, Farsleben, which is located with the extermination train, was evacuated of the German civilians and turned over to the members of the train.[*] Capt. Fleming, of our 105th Engineers, found a warehouse filled with drugs, chocolate milk powder, baby food, bandages, and other medical equipment. Another warehouse was found. Major Huff went down to look into this one, and it contained about the same things. Trucks were sent to these warehouses, loaded and taken to the doctors in charge of these people. It was just like manna from heaven for them. Fifteen cases of typhus had developed, and three other doctors were discovered among the group of prisoners–making a total number of five or six. Dr. Schwieter was put in charge, medically, by Col. Treherne. He was born in Poland, but is a citizen of Chile. He received his degree in Poland, probably University of Warsaw. He studied in Paris, Berlin, and Vienna. He specialized in Surgery, Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Pediatrics. Col. Treherne said that he was a very smart man and very cultured. The doctor said that we were saviors from heaven.

  Casualties to date:

  Division24,718

  Civilian962

  Enemy2,099

  Other Units3,606

  31,385

  *

  Monday

  16 April 1945

  Dr. Julius Schwieger, the doctor that Col. Treherne put in charge of the concentration camp train, was in the office this morning. He came in for some vital medical supplies, and rode in on the back of a motorcycle. He showed us two pictures of himself before he was taken prisoner by the Nazis six years ago. He was a very fleshy man. This morning he stripped down to the waist. He was nothing but skin and bones. He would pull his skin and it would stretch out some three to four inches. He has his wife and two children with him. We gave him some white medical gowns, a stethoscope, medical supplies, and for himself, we gave him some soap, candy and chocolate for the children, sugar, coffee, soap, razor and blades, and other toilet articles. We also gave him some cigarettes and pipe tobacco. Concerning the medical supplies, when the Col. would ask him i
f he had enough, and he told him he could take it all, he would say, ‘It is too much. All that I want is just enough.’

  He was very considerate. The thing that he seemed to get the most enjoyment from was the American Medical Journal that Major Lowell gave him. He subscribed to the Journal for fifteen years and hadn’t seen an issue for the past six years. Dr. Schwieger was very interested that we write to a doctor friend of his in Detroit, as the friend believed him to be dead.

  *

  Wolfgang Groppe was a German boy living at Farsleben. The author contacted him in March 2016 after reading a comment he made on a video that was posted of an interview with soldier Frank W. Towers. He gave the following statement.

  Wolfgang Groppe

  I was a ten-year-old boy living on a farm in the village of Farsleben when the US forces with their tanks, trucks, and jeeps rolled into the marketplace. I have with my own eyes seen the suffering of the prisoners from that train in April 1945. After the US Army liberated the captive people, they wandered all over the village. The Army commandeered the bakery for the prisoners, and they gulped fresh bread and the food they were given from the Army, resulting in terrible retching as their bodies were totally unfamiliar with real food. There were carts of the unfortunate bodies that did not make it, and they died while still on the train. These were ‘gueterwagen,’ cattle cars. Yes, Frank Towers is 100% right, this happened and was just unbelievable suffering and tragedy for the 2,500 Jewish prisoners on that train. The US Army commanded the able German women to assist washing their laundry; my mother was one of these women! One more detail I can remember is the MP detail visiting the burgermeister’s office and arresting several Nazis and driving away. Just a few weeks prior to the American arrival, Farsleben was a standpoint for one of the last [German] cavalry regiments, and we, as most boys are apt to do, admired their horses and we filled our pockets with their dried sugar beets feed. [The horses were] boarding inside some large barns in the village, and just a few days before the US arrival, they hitched up their gears, mounted the horses, and that was the end, for me, of the glorious 1,000-year German Reich. Can you believe the army on horseback with the US military at their doorstep?

  I had a real tough time with the discovery of the death train at that siding just a few minutes from my home at that time in 1945. Somehow in my ten-year-old reasoning, it had a deep impact on me, and the pictures of all that suffering and the living skeletons walking all over the village, the carts full of dead bodies. The strange-looking military all over the place, the first contact with the US soldiers, and the unbelievable noise of the light infantry's rolling equipment—this whole scenario imprinted itself on my conscience. That was a dark day for everyone, but for the prisoners of that train, God and the United States Army got there in time. It took me some time to live with all that, but my 81st birthday is next week so I will just be thankful to have made it so far.

  *

  On April 17, four days after the liberation, the 30th Infantry Division’s G-2 officer wrote up his report.

  A PW[*] stated that the camp Bergen–Belsen was run by two officers of the Totenkopf Verbande, SS/HauptsturmFührer (Capt.) Kramer and SS/UntersturmFührer (Lt.) Klipp. The prisoner’s own attitude was one of hand-washing apathy. He was not responsible for what went on, was just a pawn—and if he was bothered by some of the things that went on, no one knows about it.

  This is one of the many stories of the Nazis’ organized cruelty of the German model of total warfare. Two other suspects of the case, which certainly will affect the task of Military Government, which will face many of the units now devoted to fighting, were developed at Farsleben. The first in the report by many of the prisoners, that the inhabitants of the town were very friendly when the train first stopped there—because they expected the hourly arrival of the US troops. Later, when our failure to arrive aroused some doubts, the populace reverted to hostility and contempt. Our troops, when they did arrive, however, found the citizenry of Farsleben most eager to be of help to the prisoners. The second observation was made by Military Government Officers, after the prisoners had been fed and deloused, and after beds and clean bed-clothes had been set up for them in barns and other buildings. The setup looked beautiful, but only for a short time. The personal standards of cleanliness of many members of the group were bad, and some even went so far as to defecate on the floor of their living quarters. This rehabilitation for many of the victims of Hitler’s Europe must mean far more than mere relocation and provision of adequate food and quarters, which itself is no great problem. True rehabilitation must provide for even so fundamental a thing as a sense of physical decency, for a large number of those who have been treated and have lived for years as animals.

  Casualties to date:

  Division24,778

  Civilian974

  Enemy2,100

  Other Units3,628

  31,480

  *

  Nineteen-year-old 1st. Lt. Charles M. Kincaid was a liaison officer with the 30th Division Artillery. As a young soldier, Kincaid rarely wrote home, but he did write to his minister about this event that evidently really caused him to stop and think. He was horrified by what he witnessed at the liberation of the train, and was so distressed that he could not even tell his mother about what he had seen. His shock, trauma, and outrage are symbolic of the feelings felt by all the liberators of the Nazi victims.

  Charles M. Kincaid

  April 17, 1945

  Dear Chaplain,

  Haven’t written you in many months now, it’s funny how a few moments are so hard to find in which to write a letter way past due; it’s much easier to keep putting it off the way I’ve done. I’ll try to make up for it in this letter.

  Today I saw a sight that’s impossible to describe, however I’ll try. Between 2,400 and 3,000 German refugees were overran by my division during our last operation; most of them were, or had been, inmates of concentration camps, their crimes the usual ones—Jewish parentage, political differences with der Führer, lack of sympathy for the SS, or just plain bad luck. Not one of these hundreds could walk one mile and survive; they had been packed on a train whose normal capacity was perhaps four or five hundred, and had been left there days without food.

  Our division military government unit took charge of them, and immediately saw what a huge job it was going to be, so they sent out a call for help. Several of our officers went out to help them organize the camp they were setting up for them. The situation was extremely ticklish we soon learned; no one could smoke as it started a riot when the refugees saw the cigarette, and we couldn’t give the kiddies anything or they would have been trampled to death in the rush that would result when anything resembling food was displayed. The only nourishment they were capable of eating was soup; now the army doesn’t issue any of the Heinz 57 varieties, so we watered down C-rations and it served quite well. It was necessary to use force to make the people stay in line in order to serve them. They had no will power left, only the characteristics of beasts.

  A few weeks of decent food will change them into a semblance of normal human beings; with God willing, the plague of disease that was already underway will be diverted; but I’m wondering what the effect of their ordeal they have been through will be on their minds; most will carry scars for the rest of their days for the beatings that they were given. No other single thing had convinced me as this experience has that Germany isn’t fit to survive as a nation. I’ll never forget today.

  I was going to write Mother tonight but thought better of it. I’ll be in a better frame of mind tomorrow. I’m only a few dozen miles from Berlin right now, and it’s hard to realize the end is in sight. I’m always glad to receive your scandal sheet. You perhaps missed your calling, as your editorial abilities are quite plain.

  As ever,

  Charles.

  BOOK FOUR

  REUNION:

  THE RIPPLES RETURN

  I survived because of many miracles. But for me to actually meet,
shake hands, hug, and cry together with my liberators—the ‘angels of life’ who literally gave me back my life—was just beyond imagination.

  –Leslie Meisels, Holocaust survivor

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  ‘The Indomitable Spirit’

  *

  March 2006/ Hudson Falls, NY

  Four years had passed since I put the soldiers’ narratives and photographs on our WWII oral history project website. Two days before my 45th birthday, I’m sitting at the computer a few minutes after getting my students settled in with a test. My email inbox quietly chimes. The kids all seem to be properly on task. I take a look.

  From: Lexie Keston

  Sent: Wednesday, March 29, 2006 1:38 AM

  To: Rozell Matt

  Subject: Your website

  Dear Mr. Rozell,

  I was directed to your Living History Project website by the people at the Bergen–Belsen Memorial in Germany.

  I am what is now called a 'child survivor' of Bergen–Belsen. I was on the train in the story 'A Train Near Magdeburg' as recorded by Professor George C. Gross. I have had now the good fortune to speak to George Gross by telephone and also have had a number of email communications with him. On April 13, 1945, I was six years old. I had been on the train with my parents. I now live in Sydney, Australia.

  I would very much like to make for myself a DVD copy of the 12 photographs in this story.

  I hope you do not mind this request and that you will be able to help me.