Holocaust Survivors and Liberators Meet 65 Years Later

JACKSONVILLE, Fla/HUDSON FALLS, N.Y. -- As World War II came to a close in 1945, a small American tank battalion discovered a train full of Jewish prisoners abandoned in the German countryside. Sixty-five years later, the survivors and liberators are reunited.

At the World War II museum at Camp Blanding, the walls are lined with historical artifacts, and articles.

"That is my actual uniform," said Frank Towers.

At 92-years-old, Towers volunteers at the museum every week.  He shares the stories behind each piece of history, including his own.

Lt. Towers was assigned to the 30th Infantry Division of the United States Army during World War II.

As the war came to a close, the 30th swept through the German countryside, liberating the towns and people held captive by the Nazis.

On April 13, 1945, a tank battalion from the 30th came across a freight train, at a stop at the bottom of a hill outside the town of Magdeburg.

"We had never seen any of this torture they were talking about until we came up on this train. Then of course, we became believers," said Towers.

Inside the boxcars were 2,500 Jewish prisoners from the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

Sick and starved, and likely headed to their death, the prisoners were packed into the cars at twice the capacity, forced to stand on the train for the past six days.

"They were skin and bones. They'd been tortured," Towers recalls.

During the Holocaust, more than 100,000 Jews died in the Bergen Belsen camp alone; a small percentage of the six million who ultimately lost their lives at the hand of the Nazis. 

With Allied forces closing in, the Nazis began evacuating Bergen Belsen, to hide the evidence of the atrocities committed there.

"It was hard to believe anyone would do this to another group of human beings," Towers said.

As a liaison officer, Lt. Towers knew the roads well, and he was tasked with transporting the victims.

"Out of the battle zone, to safety, food, clothing and shelter," he said.

The liberators loaded the survivors into trucks and delivered them safely to American military grounds.

For Towers, this was just part of the job. 

After the war ended, Frank was assigned to occupation duty in another part of Europe.

His wife, Mary, joined him. 

Later, the couple moved back to the states and eventually settled in Alachua County, outside Gainesville.

Towers says he didn't dwell on his war time experiences over the years, though he always felt connected to the people his division helped rescue from the train.

"As one of the [survivors] remarked to me, 'We were born again. Our life started all over again, for us,'" Towers recalled.

Almost a lifetime later, the liberators are finding out just how much their actions meant.

In late September, a crowd gathered on a high school stage in a small, upstate New York town. A handful of veterans, now close to 90 years old, stand side by side with the people they helped save.

Liberators and survivors united once again.

"It's a very emotional meeting for all of us."

This was a gathering years in the making.

When Hudson Falls High School history teacher Matt Rozell asked his students to interview veterans for a project, the story of the Train Near Magdeburg was uncovered.

"Each account is absolutely memorable. There's a common thread through every single one," Rozell said.

When Rozell posted the story on the internet, he says survivors--the children and young Jewish people rescued from the train--began contacting him from all over the world.

"They're grandparents now, and I definitely think there's a feeling of wanting to know what happened to them," Rozell said.

"It was an impossible dream," Steven Barry said.

Barry, who is from Belgium, was 20-years-old when the Americans freed him from the train.

His desire to understand his own history led him to Hudson Falls, and Frank Towers.

"We kind of hugged, kissed and cried. Because basically, I saw him 65 years ago," Towers said of the meeting.

Barry agreed.

"Can you imagine an army that landed on D-Day and fought its way through unbelievable conditions, getting shot at and then rescuing 2,500 flea-bitten Jews? I mean if you tell this to somebody, they'll think you're lying. It just doesn't happen. But it did," Barry smiled, grasping Towers' hand in his.

Steven Barry lives in Boca Raton now, and communicates regularly with Frank Towers.

The two share a bond not only with each other, but with every Jewish survivor and American liberator on that German hillside in 1945.

"We'll always be special friends. There's a bond there that will never be broken. No question about that. It's something that doesn't happen everyday," Towers said.

"It's once in a lifetime, our meeting. It really is," Barry said.

Over the years, Hudson Falls High School students and faculty have recorded over 100 interviews with veterans and survivors. 

The purpose of the project is to preserve the stories and pass them on to future generations, so the Holocaust and the people affected by it are never forgotten.

To learn more about the Hudson Falls World War II Living History Project, CLICK HERE.