A Train Near Magdeburg
Page 29
The motorcade slows as it approaches Capitol Hill, and the three buses slowly maneuver and dock like lumbering giants at the sidewalk entrance. The pistons blast and the buses drop gently. The engines are cut. The doors open.
We have arrived.
It is a beautiful morning, and the Capitol Police dismount from their escort motorcycles and walk over, motioning and instructing for us to disembark and follow the guides. Emerging slowly into the warm April sunlight are the guests of honor, many of whom step down gingerly, clutching canes or holding the arm of a relative or friendly USHMM escort; nearly all sport caps festooned with pins and patches. One hundred twenty-one old soldiers, eyes sparkling as they pose for photographs, are escorted slowly through the entryway of the grand building. A single teacher follows the veterans on this beautiful spring day. Me.
Passing through security and now inside the Rotunda, I am amazed at its beauty but also at the intimacy that emanates from under the hallowed dome as the veterans and survivors, the politicians and officials, process in. Scaffolding with TV crews and narrow towers with klieg lights illuminate the area, and as the ceremony begins, I am one hundred feet from General David Petraeus, who is about to address these old soldiers. The haunting sound of the Marine Corps violinist serenades the gathering, carrying our thoughts to the victims of the Holocaust whom we remember today. The names of the liberating Army units are called out from the dais as each division is formally recognized, their unit colors hoisted aloft on cue and paraded in.[*] Sixty-five years was a lifetime ago. But really, it was just yesterday.
My cellphone buzzes as the ceremony ends. My congressman is here somewhere, and his staff would like me to come to his office. He was powerfully moved, but I have to dash for the airport to return to school. But I’m walking on air.
UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM—‘HONORING LIBERATION,’ 2010[*]
NARRATOR
They were men and women who came together from all across the United States, from Canada, and from as far away as Israel. For several, it was their first face-to-face meeting with each other in more than sixty years.
CARROL ‘RED’ WALSH
How could a young guy like me be eighty-eight years old! I’m not sure how many more reunions I’m going to go to. I never thought I would see anybody on that train again. It’s amazing! Just amazing.
NARRATOR
The occasion was to commemorate an event that occurred on April 13, 1945, as American armies rolled across Europe, liberating millions from the dominion of the Third Reich. On that day, the Army’s 743rd Tank Division came upon a sight near Magdeburg, Germany, they never expected to see. Freight train cars alone on a track, and filled wall to wall with over two thousand men, women, and children, all of them Jews.
CARROL ‘RED’ WALSH, TANK COMMANDER, U.S. ARMY 743RD TANK BATTALION
I remembered seeing this long freight train, long string of boxcars, and I can remember pulling the tank to the right and driving along the side of the train and seeing all these people that were on these boxcars. It was totally unexpected and when I saw their condition I was overwhelmed, I can remember thinking, ‘What are we going to do with all these people and for all these people?’
NARRATOR
This fateful wartime incident might have remained known only to those who were directly part of it, had it not been for a Web site created and managed by Matthew Rozell. A high school history teacher in Hudson Falls, New York, and a teacher fellow with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Rozell conducted several interviews with men and women whose lives were directly caught up in the events of the Holocaust. It was during an interview with Carrol ‘Red’ Walsh, a tank commander with the 743rd, that the story of the train car outside Magdeburg came to light.
MATTHEW ROZELL, HISTORY TEACHER, HUDSON FALLS HIGH SCHOOL
And at the tail end of a two-hour discussion, a taped conversation I had with him in his daughter’s living room, his daughter chimed in and said, ‘Dad, did you tell Mr. Rozell about that train that stopped, that you had to go and investigate?’ He said, ‘Oh, that’s right, that train.’ And he launched into about how it was a beautiful April day. He and another tank commander went down and investigated this train stopped by the side of the tracks. They found it full of Jewish refugees. The other tank commander, he told me, was still alive in California, and actually had photographs that he took of the liberation. And this Dr. Gross allowed me to place the photographs on the Internet. We put those on our school Web site, and they sat there, not a lot of Web traffic. But all of a sudden, I got an e-mail from a grandmother in Australia who had been a six-year-old girl on that train. And she said that she clicked on the Web link, the photographs opened, and this was the day of her liberation in 1945. She said she fell out of her chair.
It was very organic the way it all unfolded. I would open up my e-mail inbox and there would be another message from a new survivor, somebody that I wasn’t aware of before. These people are coming to me individually. They’re not aware of each other for the most part before finding my Web site on the Internet, for example. So, it’s just kind of unfolding.
RENE ROBERGE, MASTER OF CEREMONIES, HUDSON FALLS HIGH SCHOOL
[Auditorium speech] At this time, I would like to call to the stage the rest of our soldiers and survivors, beginning with Mr. Francis Currey.[*] [Applause]
NARRATOR
The surviving veterans are modest about their accomplishments, but this did not prevent the audience of students, teachers, town residents, and Holocaust survivors from honoring them at a special reunion event held at Hudson Falls High School in September 2009.
WILLIAM GAST, U.S. ARMY 743RD TANK BATTALION
[Auditorium speech] It’s a gratifying and emotional experience to reunite with some of the survivors, to meet them face-to-face, and to call them my friends.
LESLIE MEISELS, SURVIVOR, TRAIN AT MAGDEBURG
[Auditorium speech] Those brave American soldiers, they were saying that they didn’t do anything heroic, they just did their job. But with that job, they gave us back our life, and for that I thank you from the bottom of my heart. [Applause]
NARRATOR
[dancing and music] It was a heady four days for the guests of honor and their families, a time to reminisce and reconnect, a time to enjoy each other’s company, and reflect upon what brought them together.
BUSTER SIMMONS, COMBAT MEDIC, 30TH INFANTRY DIVISION
We were there. But it’s still tough to wrap your mind around the situation that presented itself when those people were liberated on that train.
ELIZABETH SEAMAN, SURVIVOR, TRAIN AT MAGDEBURG
None of them put themselves up as being something special, and they have a great sense of humility, and also a great sense of love. I feel that love just emanating from them to me and the others, and I think the sense of love that they have I think is also what has kept them going and giving all their lives.
NARRATOR
Matt Rozell’s spotlight as ABC News Person of the Week was a fitting conclusion to this special event. At the farewell banquet following the broadcast, Rene Roberge, the Hudson Falls High School teacher who served as the program’s master of ceremonies, told liberators and survivors alike what he had learned from them.
RENE ROBERGE
…to share the truth. The moral responsibility you had as a liberator to free a people from harm at a moment’s notice, and, as a survivor, to save a generation from becoming complacent. You were heroes then; you are my heroes now.
MATTHEW ROZELL
I think we were in the right place at the right time, in the sense that we had people who are now at the stage in their life where they really wanted to send a message before they leave this earth. To see how it touched these students so deeply, that is where the real gratification is for me, and that’s what this whole week was all about. You can’t forget the past. You have to remember what happened. You can’t just be a bystander.
FRANK TOWERS, PRESIDENT, 30TH INFANTRY DIVI
SION VETERANS of WWII
You know, I bid those people goodbye and thought I’d never see them again. So now here we are, 65 years later, we’re coming together, and it’s a rewarding experience. [Embraces survivor]
*
We did another, final reunion at the high school in 2011. Just after it concluded, Steve Barry was seriously hurt in a car accident and passed away in January 2012. He had fulfilled a life’s quest of meeting his liberators; his daughters honored me by packing up his library of Holocaust books and shipping them to me (many of which I referenced in constructing this book). His children and grandchildren honored his memory by creating a fellowship for scholars at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and his inscription carved into the Donors’ Wall simply reads:
STEPHEN B. BARRY—FOR THE SAKE OF HUMANITY
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The Medics
A few weeks following the last school reunion in 2011, I got a phone call in my classroom from a man in Scranton, Pennsylvania. To this day, I do not know how he found me. After four years of not hearing from any other American soldier who had something to do with this ‘Train near Magdeburg,’ I had come to the conclusion that it was now all over. Walter Gantz proved me wrong, and not only did he play an important role, he knew of several others who were also still alive to share their experiences at the convalescent base/camp at Hillersleben.
Walter was part of the 95th Medical Gas Treatment Battalion, trained extensively to treat chemical warfare casualties. When no gas was deployed by the enemy in combat, Walter and his outfit stepped right into the role of treating other casualties of the battlefield. He recalled surveying the train at Farsleben, and the memories of treating the victims over the next seven weeks haunted him right up until his contact with me. I spoke with Walter several times on the phone, and we exchanged letters; I also put him in contact with at least four of the survivors of the train, two of whom would go on to meet him in Scranton to speak at a Holocaust symposium. At my suggestion, Walter was interviewed by a film crew in 2016.
Walter ‘Babe’ Gantz
Basically, there were four medical battalions—the 92nd, 93rd, 94th, and 95th. We were the ‘baby battalion.’ We were extensively trained in chemical warfare. In fact, that was our top priority, in case they used chemical agents and that was it. We were a sophisticated outfit. In fact, Colonel Bill Hurteau, our commander, he said we were the cream of the crop [chuckles]. Maybe he was right, I don't know.
Robert ‘Bob’ Schatz was one of Walter’s fellow medics, and from Company C of the 95th.
Robert Schatz
We had tremendous equipment. We had our own showers, we had our own mechanics, we had our own telephones, and we had our own cooks. We were a completely mobile outfit. And we were always prepared, just in case the Germans used gas [on our troops]. But meanwhile, we operated as a medical battalion. We would always set up the tents, and then we would move out and go to the next place.
Walter ‘Babe’ Gantz
We were trained in the medical field also, and treating ‘normal’ casualties, both physical and mental. In fact, we treated hundreds of [cases of] what we called ‘combat fatigue.’ Today, it would be the post-traumatic stress disorder. That was quite a challenge, to take care of those people.
Robert Schatz
From the Battle of the Bulge, we had [casualties with] the trenchfoot, frozen toes, the battle exhaustion—it was terrible. The toes turned blue and a lot of [soldiers] had to have their toes cut off. We also had kids who were sick, who were crying, [soldiers] who we had to just calm down. We kept them for a couple days, and then we sent them back. We had a lot of nervous kids, a lot of kids from the 106th Division. They were really [just out of] basic training, they were going to college, and when [the Army] needed infantry replacements, they took all these kids out of the colleges, and I don’t think they were properly trained.
Walter ‘Babe’ Gantz
I was a surgical technician. As the name implies, I worked on a surgical team, which was very interesting to say the least. The most difficult thing that I just couldn’t accept was the amputations. That was very difficult, really.
Robert Schatz
I worked in the operating room most of the time. And we cut off some legs, some arms; we also had a lot of automobile accidents. You know, the roads were very slippery [in the winter]. You’d be surprised at how many automobile accidents we had.
Walter ‘Babe’ Gantz
I was part of a so-called ‘advance party.’ There were about 10 or 12 of us from the 95th and, as you know, the train was discovered on the 13th of April of ’45. Our advance party was at Farsleben on the 14th, or the next day—the situation was beyond description. These people were emaciated and like they say, ‘living skeletons’; most of them could hardly walk. [Shakes head] It was a horrible sight. Some people say there were sixteen that passed away on the train. Other reports say thirty, so I would say thirty. They were buried down the knoll adjacent to the train.[*]
I must admit I shed a lot of tears and I prayed. I prayed that they would pass on, that they would find peace, and for those who survived, that their health would be restored—and dignity. Dignity is so important in life—dignity, that was the main thing. It was difficult. We spent just one night there and then we were ordered to go to Hillersleben and to take over the hospital—there was actually a 100-bed hospital at the time there.
The 30th Division already had taken that area of Hillersleben, and it was chaotic. I mean, that’s the only way to describe it. In the nearby area, there was a German air force base and also, they actually had an ordnance unit there! There were about 150 engineers and physicists, some of the top brains of Germany, and they were working on sophisticated weaponry, really. These barracks, they had deep underground bunkers. They had sleeping facilities or quarters, and food, and everything like that. [As far as] the barracks at Hillersleben go, when you talk about barracks, usually you talk about cots and beds all around. A lot of these barracks actually had apartments! We did our utmost to keep families together.
Frank Tower’s group transported these people from Farsleben to Hillersleben, which is probably maybe four or five miles. Some of the survivors were in such a condition that they were set up into private homes in Farsleben, and then, later on when they transported the majority of people, a lot of them were put in private homes at Hillersleben. It was difficult. It’s hard to describe, I lived through it, but transporting these people was a difficult situation for the 30th Division. I have to tip my hat to the 105th Medical Battalion, which was a part of the 30th Division. I mean, they did a tremendous job trying to help these people. Of course, they had to move on because the war was still being fought!
We set up the hospitals, and it was tough on these people because they spent so much time at the Bergen–Belsen concentration camp and they were horrified at the thought that they were being treated by German personnel. I can understand that. This hospital was basically operated by Germans really, three or four doctors and 35 or 40 nurses, but a lot of them could speak English, so it would help a lot as far as we were concerned, and we did our best to comfort these people. A few days later, ‘C’ Company of the 95th, they came down to Hillersleben and there were about 127 enlisted men and about eleven or twelve doctors. Before we left, we were almost close to 500 beds between two hospitals [set up there].[*]
Robert Schatz
There were German doctors, yeah. In fact, one of us tackled one of them because we didn’t like the way he talked. [One of our guys] tackled him and banged his head on the concrete, because he didn’t like the way the German spoke to him, or something like that. I remember that. He just knocked him on the ground; he smashed his head on the ground, so we all cheered. And that was the only incident we had like that, but most of the time everybody listened and did what they had to do. We did supervision of the German nurses; we had to make sure they were doing the right things.
Grier Taylor was also a member of the 95th Medical Ba
ttalion, Company C, and did a range of jobs.
Grier Taylor
We were acting as a first aid station across the Siegfried Line going into Germany. We took [our wounded] into the first aid station and sent some of them to field hospitals much further behind from where we were. Then, [in late April 1945] our next move was to a beautiful hospital [at Hillersleben] and we were told to set up. And when I say beautiful, it was the most [beautifully] equipped at that time. The yards were kept; Hitler didn’t ever think that America or any other foreign country would have soldiers on this side of Germany. When we went into this hospital, we were told then what we would be doing is taking care of survivors from the train. Then, a few days after we got set up, well, probably the first day, we eliminated all these German soldiers that were there, except these two doctors, medical doctors.[*] They preferred to stay for a short time, which was about two weeks.