Desperate to escape, Bretholz said he put aside feelings of sickness and nausea in the next steps he took. I bent down and soaked my pullover in urine. There were bits of excrement floating in it. I felt humiliated. It was the most disgusting thing I had ever done, he said. With the fellow passangers advice working, Bretholz and his friend successfully pulled the bars far enough apart for them to squeeze their way out. But their battle for survival was far from over once they were on the outside the edge of the wagon, with the two young men trying to avoid the guards searchlights. It was not until the train passed a corner that the pair used a concave shadow to hide them as they jumped. Getting a second chance at life, the two miraculously survived the escape and risky jump, with Bretholz spending the rest of World War II evading the Nazis. Escape Leo Bretholz, who died last week at 9. Five Chimneys The Story Of Auschwitz Free Online' title='Five Chimneys The Story Of Auschwitz Free Online' />Aged 9. Bretholz died in the US a week ago, coinciding with new historical research published in Germany. The work tells the unheard stories of about those who cheated death by jumping from Nazi trains leaving from France, Belgium and Holland for death camps. Historian Tanja von Fransecky spent four years interviewing people and researching archives in Europe and Israel for her study Jewish Escapes from Deportation Trains. She said was shocked at the number who survived the Holocaust by jumping trains. I was amazed that this happened at all. I had always assumed that the wagons were stuffed full prior to departure and simply opened on arrival and that not much could happen in between, she said. During her research, the author found this was not the case, with desperate attempts by passengers trying to break free from the Nazi trains with the aid of smuggled tools in some cases, or by people improvising, such as Bretholz with the urine drenched pullovers. But would be escapees often faced anger from fellow passengers, who feared for their own lives if others successfully got away. Their concerns were on the back of threats that everyone would be shot if someone escape and fears over who would care for children, the old and the sick. This placed the escapees in a deep moral dilemma, torn between leaving someone behind and fighting to live, Dr von Fransecky said. For this reason, the author said many survivors kept silent in the years following the war, including Simon Gronowski, 8. At just 1. 1 years old, Gronowski was held in a Nazi transit camp near Antwerp, Belgium. With his father escaping the Gestapo, Nazi Germanys feared secret police force, the young boy hoped to rejoin his dad. Prisoners arriving at the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1. In the background chimneys of the crematory can be seen, used to burn the bodies of the murdered prisoners. It is believed 2. Jews, were killed here by the Nazi regime until the end of World War II in 1. Death camp The snow covered train tracks lead to the gas chambers of the Auschwitz concentration camp. The Nazis had the concentration camp established in 1. After hearing about people leaping off trains, he used his bunk bed in the Nazi camp to practice jumping in preparation for his own escape. In March 1. 94. 3, Gronowski and his mother were among those packed onto a cattle wagon with Auschwitz awaiting them at the end of their journey. Getting his chance to beat death, the young boy was encouraged by a group of resistance fighters raid, which freed 1. Jews from the train. A group of men in Gronowskis wagon were able to force open the door, but with the train building speed, the young boy paused while hesitating. Taking the jump off the train, his mothers last words to him were that the train was going too fast. While he survived, his mother was murder in Auschwitz shortly after. Willy Berler was 2. Auschwitz transport travelling through Belgium but he did not jump. Part of a group of six young male prisoners, they broke open a cattle wagon window, which enabled them to escape one by one. Watching anxiously as the person before him climbed through the window, Berler was next, but as he pulled himself through, was confronted with a horrible sight. The boy was caught between two wagons and his head had been crushed between the buffers like a melon. Berler said in hindsight, if he knew what awaited him in Auschwitz, he would have jumped, but unlike thousands of others, he survived the camp. Simon Gronowski lost his sister in Auschwitz and only resolved his traumatic experiences in 2. In the meeting, the guard begged him for forgiveness, with the two men weeping as they fell into each others arms. My life has been full of miracles, Mr Gronowski now likes to say. Red Cross workers care for 2,5. Jewish slave laborers who were being transported by train to camps behind Nazi lines when freed by rapidly advancing US Ninth Army infantrymen. Many prisoners died during the rail ride from malnutrition and lack of medical attention.
Five Chimneys The Story Of Auschwitz Free Online© 2017