Attack on the 20th deportation train to Auschwitz

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The attack on the 20th deportation train to Auschwitz was an action by Belgian resistance fighters . Youra Livchitz , Robert Maistriau and Jean Franklemon stopped the deportation train from Mechelen on April 19, 1943 , which was transporting 1618 Jews to Auschwitz-Birkenau . When forced to stop on the open road near Boortmeerbeek, they helped 17 people to escape.

background

Memorial at the site of the robbery

In May 1940 the Wehrmacht occupied Belgium. On June 3, 1942, the German occupiers ordered Jews living in Belgium to wear the Jewish star . In July 1942, around 25,000 Jews began to be deported to the eastern territories occupied by Germans. With a total of 27 trains, people were mostly taken directly to extermination camps via the SS assembly camp in Mechelen . Most of them didn't know what to expect.

The trains were usually guarded by a command of fifteen members of the security police, who were under the orders of an officer of the German security police . The escort team traveled in a third-class passenger car that ran along at the end of the train. If the train had to wait on a siding, the guards formed a chain of sentries and used firearms to prevent possible escape attempts. Often the bolts on the car doors were secured with wire and the ventilation openings with barbed wire.

Nevertheless, younger Jews in particular planned their escape and carried tools such as pliers and saws with them. They waited until the train slowed down in curves and on inclines and used the darkness to jump off as unseen as possible. There was a high risk of being so injured by gunshots by the escort or jumping that it was not possible to escape. On the previous deportation trains from Mechelen, a total of 577 people were able to break out of their cars and flee. Even with the upcoming 20th transport - regardless of the liberation action - 215 people were able to free themselves. Members of the Comité de défense des Juifs (CDJ) were able to convince the two engine drivers Albert Simon and Albert Dumon to reduce the speed of the train on suitable sections of the route to make it easier to jump off.

On April 19, 1943, the 20th deportation train started from Mechelen to Auschwitz. It was the first transport from Belgium that the Germans carried out with freight wagons . Too many prisoners from previous trains could jump out of the windows of the passenger cars. The small window openings of the freight and cattle cars were nailed shut with wooden slats. On board this 20th transport were 1,631 people, mostly Jews, but also Sinti and Roma from the French department of Pas-de-Calais .

Liberation Action

The three school friends Youra Livchitz, Jean Franklemon and Robert Maistriau were united in their radical rejection of National Socialism. Youra Livchitz and Jean Franklemon were with the Belgian Scouts before World War II . Livchitz, a young Jewish doctor from Brussels and head of the group, printed out leaflets against the German occupiers in an artist's studio before the action.

The plan to free the inmates of a deportation train was rejected by leading members of the partisans. At least twenty armed and well-trained men are needed to keep the German escort team in check, and it is an incalculable risk for everyone. Nor did they have any idea how to hide and care for a hundred or even more than a thousand Jewish refugees. So the three friends were left on their own.

On April 19, 1943, on a clear night with a full moon, the three young Belgians stopped a train that was supposed to transport 1,618 Jews from the Belgian assembly camp in Mechelen to Auschwitz-Birkenau. They were equipped with three pliers , a storm light stuck with red paper and a pistol . To make the train stop, they put the red lantern on the tracks.

Maistriau later reported on the situation: “I was surprised by the tremendous silence at that moment. There was no sound, no birds chirping. Nothing but the hiss of the locomotive. I went to the train and stood right in front of a carriage. I took my tools and opened the door. I faced about 50 people who were all silent. "

Some immediately jumped out of the car, others shouted that nobody should flee, that was very dangerous. Maistriau led two groups one after the other away from the railroad track and gave each person a 50 franc note for their further escape. During the operation, they freed 17 men and women until the gliding command opened fire and the train started again.

Another 215 inmates were later able to flee on their own before the 20th convoy reached the German border.

Rescued and rescuers

Of the 232 train refugees, 26 were either shot while trying to escape or died of injuries sustained when they jumped. 87 deportees were arrested again after their escape. 119 refugees were not caught again.

The three attackers were initially able to escape. Youra Livchitz planned to flee to England via France. However, he was betrayed and arrested by the Gestapo on June 26, 1943 . He was admitted to Fort Breendonk and executed on February 17, 1944. Jean Franklemon was caught and survived imprisonment in Sachsenhausen concentration camp ; he died in 1977. Robert Maistriau was sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp in May 1944 and was then sent to the Mittelbau-Dora satellite camp . He survived the war, moved to the Belgian Congo in 1949 , where he lived as a development worker for 40 years, and died in 2008.

Culture of remembrance

In 1995, in collaboration with the Belgian Jewish Community, the Belgian Railway Company and other initiatives, a memorial was built at Boortmeerbeek station for the deportees who passed through the station between 1942 and 1944. The "Three Hands" panel on this system is reminiscent of Youra Livchitz, Robert Maistriau and Jean Franklemon. The inscription reads: "Friend, who you pass by, honor these hands which, in a heroic act, saved those who were to be led to Hell by the forces of evil."

The action and the actors became more known through the book Stille Rebellen by the journalist Marion Schreiber , published in 2000 . She researched documents from Belgian and German archives , trial files and personal papers , conducted interviews with contemporary witnesses and took a look at monographs in order to draw a picture of the events leading up to the attack. Paul Spiegel wrote the foreword to this book.

literature

  • Marc Michiels and Mark van den Wijngaert: Het XXste transport naar Auschwitz. De ongelijke strijd op leven en dood. Davidsfonds / Standaard Uitgeverij, Leuven 2019, ISBN 978-90-5908-980-8
  • Marion Schreiber: Silent Rebels - The attack on the 20th deportation train to Auschwitz. Aufbau-Verlag, 2nd edition Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-7466-8067-0 Reviews at Perlentaucher .
  • Tanja von Fransecky: Escape of Jews from deportation trains in France, Belgium and the Netherlands. Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-86331-168-1 (here pp. 234-260).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Grenzgeschichte DG (German-speaking Community)
  2. ↑ haGalil online: Liberation from the deportation train (accessed on December 31, 2013)
  3. ^ Tanja von Fransecky: Escape of Jews from deportation trains in France, Belgium and the Netherlands. Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-86331-168-1 , p. 260.
  4. ^ Tanja von Fransecky: Escape of Jews from deportation trains in France, Belgium and the Netherlands. Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-86331-168-1 , p. 238.
  5. ↑ Robert Maistriau Foundation (French)