Teaching History Matters

On February 1st 2026, I was at a special invitation-only gathering outside of New York City, a reunion of a family that was saved on the train 81 years ago this coming April.

---

The director of our upcoming film, Mike Edwards, and cameraman/photographer Josh F. was there with me and my wife, along with a daughter, Elizabeth, of liberator Red Walsh, the tank commander I interviewed in 2001 that started this whole odyssey of discovery and reunification. In attendance was also a daughter, Darlene, of medic Walter Gantz.

We had arrived the night before the Sunday afternoon event. I slept poorly, with fitful periods of sudden waking that left me exhausted, and the brutality of the February cold and wind had really worn me down; I don’t think it was nerves, but on some restless, anticipatory level I felt like I was a part of an event that was bringing together a family that I really did not even know, but was somehow connected to.

I didn’t know what to expect, but we walked into a welcome that was warm and joyous. Mike was there to allow this family gathering, many of whom had never met one another, and most who had never heard of this liberation event, the opportunity to preview a working draft of the film, A Train Near Magdeburg.

Upon arrival, my wife sat at a table with a grandmother who had been a little girl on the train. So many young women came up to her; Laura was taken with how much respect was devoted to her and the elders. Respecting the family’s wishes, we are not publishing their names, but no less than 13 members of this family were eventually liberated on this train, and the ordeals they suffered in the years and months leading up to their imprisonment in Bergen Belsen are a microcosm of the story of the catastrophe suffered by the Jews of Hungary.

As the film began, I sat in the front row on the women’s side of that gathering, with my wife and the liberators’ daughters. I scanned the audience going back twenty or so rows. They were riveted to the screen. Later, they crowded to the front, the young with cameras poised, all wearing smiles of gratitude, expressions of joy and astonishment, some even appearing dazed and starstruck, for lack of a better term. So many asked, “How did you find us?”, when the answer was, really, “No, your family had found me!” Which is true, some members had found us through my website and blogposts in the later part of the past twenty-five years.

So many miracles. No coincidences. Three hundred and twelve people from this one family had registered for the event, and I was repeatedly told that that was only one-quarter of this one family that had been saved on this train. And so many of the young people I encountered today were not even born when Red Walsh told me his story of coming across the train with fellow tank commander George Gross— “get in touch with Gross, he had a camera and took pictures that day…” which I dutifully did, posted on our school website, and four years later, began to hear from the first survivors of the train… I mean, what led me down this path, which has now been a third of my life? The only answer I have is the cosmic force, which I tried to explore in another post.

Family members asked about the book. They just did not really know this story, for the most part, outside of captivity in Bergen Belsen, transport for six days, the train shuttling back and forth, then stopping, and then liberation at the hands of the American army at the eleventh hour… That’s it.

I explained that I wrote it as my own teacher’s journey into the Holocaust, but more importantly, as an exploration of what really happened to these families in the context of the greatest crime in the history of the world.

I wrote it for the soldiers, who had no idea of what it was that they had stumbled across, what would also inflict decades of recurring traumas, until at last I was able to put them in touch with those they saved, and I wrote about that, eleven reunions on three continents. I wish the soldiers were with us in person Sunday to see the results, but they were there with us all, nonetheless.

There was profound appreciation for the soldiers’ side of the story from the survivors’ multiple generations. My wife spoke to a family who had driven all the way down from Toronto, Canada, and as the second part of the film began, Laura reminded me that it was the anniversary of George Gross’s passing. That’s right! It was fifteen years ago that day! A time for reflection, the liberator’s Yahrzeit.

It was also our son’s 28th birthday; and the event reminded me a bit of the thanksgiving event set up by my friend (and survivors’ daughter) Varda in Israel 15 years ago this year, where my son dutifully took pictures for me as a newly minted thirteen-year-old to celebrate the arrival of liberator Frank Towers on Israeli soil. Fifty-five survivors were in attendance that day!

Menorahs were presented to the families of the liberators, in gratitude.

Laura and I said our goodbyes and drove home in the cold, but also the enveloping warmth of the day’s events, with clear skies, a dry road, and a rising full moon to light the way. I think a new flame was lit today into many of these hearts; I hope that our film will also illuminate the hope that our soldiers represented to these oppressed people to others and lead them to live with a better understanding of what we can all do to make the world a better place.

---

We all are called to answer the question poised by a survivor of the so-called “lost transport”, the third train from Belsen, in his creation of a Day of Judgment scenario, where the souls of the murdered children of the Holocaust sit and inquire of us all:

“What have you done during your sojourn on earth?”