Lost Train
and Liberation

The next day the rumours turned out to be true, and within a short time, we were supposed to report to the gate. 

We started packing. We didn’t take much. Most people were too weak to carry anything, and left behind half of their already meagre possessions. That’s the way it was with us, too. My mother was too sick, and my brother was too weak to carry anything. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find his precious diary. 

In the meantime, most of the camp had gathered at the gate, and all that was left to do was wait for the trucks, which finally arrived. Patients, old people and small children crammed in, and we began the long trek to the train platform.

The starving prisoners marched in blue and white striped clothes. Those who couldn’t continue were kicked aside by their kapo and remained on the ground until they died or were shot. 

When we arrived at the station, we saw trains full of prisoners. Here, too, people on the verge of death lay on the platform. It was hard to call them human; so thin and starving, they looked like skeletons. Some of them tried to get up because they knew that if they remained on the ground, death would be inevitable; but they were too exhausted and fell back down. 

They had to walk in miserable rows of five heading towards the camp... And they couldn’t go... they held on to each other... And in the middle, they just fell and died... They fell... And just stayed there on the platform. 

What was the logic? They had to enter the camp... And we had to get out of it. ... It was so crazy. So crazy. 

Outside there was a large pile of beets available to us. We made a small bonfire and sliced the beets into very thin slices, which we “fried” in water in a saucepan we still had. That’s what we ate before we left. 

. 

The hospital car we were supposed to board was some distance away (at least it seemed so to us), and we barely got there. The three of us got one bench, which is reasonable for a day-trip, but not for a 13-day journey when you have to sleep on it. 

Then the waiting began. Will liberation slip away for us?

Every extra hour increased the chances of being saved. The night is over and we’re not on our way yet. The British could come at any moment. This inhumane period will come to an end. The next day (10 April) at 11 p.m., a whistle was heard, and the train began to move. We’re on our way. Liberation wouldn’t come for now. 13 days, the worst of our hell, was still ahead of us.

We had a place in a carriage with benches. It was very crowded. There was no place to lie on the benches. We had to sit the entire time. I remember falling asleep, and my head falling forward, and then I’d wake up and fall asleep again, and so on. We sat tightly packed. People moved their legs to create space between the benches, and people took turns lying down and sleeping a bit.

We sustained ourselves with whatever we found that was in any way edible, and we drank from the streams we encountered along the way. We were starving, exhausted, sick, and desperate. All kinds of lice and fleas were crawling all over us.

He had spotted fever, and he was pretty confused. He asked for a slice of bread with sugar, a slice of bread with sugar... He drove us crazy. ... It was crazy. He didn’t realize it was the most ridiculous thing, like asking for gold, right here and now! But then he calmed down and got better.

Sometimes there was bread and occasionally some food. Marion was in relatively good shape. She had a white nurse’s apron with her, and during one of the many train stops, she pretended to be on duty and brought us several loaves of bread from a pile on the platform... Until one of the soldiers made a remark. 

But there was nothing to drink. That was very difficult. I remember sitting and drinking my saliva, moving my tongue to have something to swallow.

Why didn’t they go, why didn’t they say... Let’s go. 

People were far too weak. And the train was standing in the middle of nowhere, so where could they go... Besides, it was a hostile country; you didn’t know how you’d be received.

Anyway, we all clung to this train like it was life itself.

Where there was destruction, progress was extremely slow, no more than 50 kilometres a day on average. For many hours or even days, the train stood waiting in open fields or near a forest until our Nazi escorts were ordered to continue.

There was a smoke curtain; we were told to go inside the smoke so they wouldn’t see us... Because we were merchandise, and we had to somehow be “protected.” I remember it stinging in my face, in my eyes. 

Father didn’t want to get off the train anymore. He felt too weak and couldn’t do it. It was dangerous for him to stay inside; three people who stayed behind were hit and died. 

He lay down and did not get up again. 

And I remember that we took care of him and washed him. We tried to keep him clean. He was lying on a bench. By then, of course, there was more space on the train. He was lying on the bench, and I was sitting there.

I sat very close to Father in the last minutes of his life – how long was that?

15 minutes? Half an hour? An hour? I don’t know. I was sitting on the edge of the bench where Father was lying. I knew he was going to die; I knew it was so obvious. ... I was sitting there waiting... and then it happened... And he was gone.

He was 41 years old at his death. May his memory be blessed. Two days after Father died, we were liberated by the Red Army soldiers. A liberation that would not have saved Father even if it had come a few days earlier.

The following morning, 22 April, they came to pick up Father.

Mother suggested that Father be placed in the grave, wrapped in the tallit that I was able to keep in my knapsack the entire time, and of course, I agreed. 

Father was buried, wrapped in the tallit, with 15 other people in the shallow mass grave that was prepared next to the railroad tracks.

The train is in Tröbitz. 

Beautiful spring weather. 

On a horse, there appeared a soldier of the Red Army. 

We understood that we were free. 

A big day; we were saved.

The Red Army soldiers liberated us! And I remember looking out the window and seeing one Russian soldier on a horse. 

I was once asked if it was a happy day. No, it wasn’t a happy day. 

We talked all the time about the day they would liberate us... You think life will be the same as it was before. Of course that was not the case. Father had died just two days earlier...

I stood up and felt terrible nausea, nauseous from hunger. Now I had to get off the bench. It was difficult. There was nowhere to put my legs. I stepped on heads and legs. Outside there were only a few people wandering. I had to go down the stairs; almost no one was capable of it anymore. It was a great effort for me, too; I was so weak. 

I didn’t go out with everyone. I had no strength. I was sick and was left lying on the empty bench in the carriage. A while later, Marion came and took me on a bicycle to the house whose occupants had fled and where we had moved in. We were two families there, Mother with the three of us in one part of the house, and Izak de Vries with his wife and two children in the other. They made room for me in a double bed I shared at night with Marion and Mother. From that moment on, I remember almost nothing. 

After two weeks of almost continuous sleep, my fever started to drop, and I slowly began to wake up. 

Mother would quote them and sneer: “Wir haben es nicht gewusst!“ (“We didn't know, we didn’t know!”). That no doubt was true: the Nazi propaganda did not focus on what was going on in the different camps. But that does not mean that it was impossible to know. They did not know because they were not interested, did not ask questions that should have been asked, did not delve, and did not wonder about the situation that had been created. 

A week and a half after we arrived, Mother got very sick and feverish; she had spotted fever. We were promised they’d move her to the hospital. But no one showed up.

One day, when I got home, she was unconscious. As much as I cried and called to her, she didn’t answer. Suddenly I heard Joost say, “Don’t you realize she’s dying?!” Until that moment, I didn’t want to acknowledge it.