New book recounts bid to reunite Holocaust survivors, US liberators

A new book details the efforts by an upstate New York teacher to reunite Jewish survivors of a Nazi concentration camp train with the US soldiers who rescued them.

“A Train Near Magdeburg” compiles years of research and interviews by Matthew Rozell, a history teacher at Hudson Falls High School.

A student project he started years ago led him to the story of American soldiers who liberated 2,500 starving Jewish prisoners from a German train in April 1945.

Nine years ago this month, one of those soldiers and three of the survivors held a reunion in Rozell’s classroom. Since then, scores of other train survivors and their children have come forward, and several other reunions have been held.

A documentary film on the story is in the works by Emmy Award-winning director Mike Edwards.

— AP