The Kindertransport and the ‘Lost Train’ of 1945: Bergen-Belsen to Tröbitz
On 15th April 1945, Bergen-Belsen was liberated by the British Army. Only days before though between 6th-10th April 1945 3 transports left the concentration camp with around 7000 Jews on board. Some of them were children. In fact, some of these children were former Kindertransportees – they had first escaped from Germany and Austria on the Kindertransports to the Netherlands and then they were tragically deported. Rescue did not always mean safety or freedom for the children as they came into direct contact with the Nazis yet again. Some had lived in the Netherlands for 3 years before they were deported. Thus, they had lived under the Nazi regime for another 2 years in their new host nation after the invasion of the Netherlands in 1940. Their incarceration in Westerbork came at different times and the dates of their transports to Bergen-Belsen were also different but their fates collided with one another when they were sent on their final transport – not to life but to death. Miraculously though many of them survived. For these Kindertransport children they would still be journeying (first into exile and then forcibly deported) right up until the end of the Second World War. However, their final transport never reached its destination.
At least 33 former Kindertransport children who found refuge in the Netherlands were on board the third transport. While 31 of them were liberated by the Red Army on 23rd April 1945, two of them perished. There were several sets of Kindertransport siblings on board too. In the chaos of the final days of the war the Nazis were still intent on murdering as many Jews as possible. As British troops got closer and closer to Bergen-Belsen, the 3 transports were preparing to leave. The first left on 6th April 1945 and was later liberated in Magdeburg by the Americans. The second left on 9th April 1945 and mainly consisted of Hungarian Jews. This transport arrived at Terezin. The third and final transport on 10th April 1945 (different sources have different date ranges for when the transports left) crossed paths with the second transport several times before coming to a stop as the Elster bridge at Tröbitz had been destroyed. Both the second and third transports were bombed which resulted in many casualties.
Hans Ludwig Klaus Bartenstein (17.04.1924) was the first Kindertransportee I learnt about who was on this fateful transport. Hans and his younger brother, Rudolf (Rudi) Max Barenstein (12.05.1928) arrived in the Netherlands in January 1939. I found their names on the Kindertransport lists as well as an exchange list of Jewish children. This was referred to as Belgien-Holland-Kinderaustausch. 5 children in the Netherlands whose parents were in Belgium were to be exchanged for 5 Jewish children housed in Belgium who would go to join their parents in the Netherlands. The brothers were in the Netherlands and were listed for exchange to Belgium but remained in the Netherlands. In the files it is stated that the mother-in-law of Fritz Bartenstein (the boys’ father) was living in Spa. Their grandma was paying for their upkeep in the Netherlands. Their father confirmed that he would pay for the boys’ upkeep in Belgium. It was also noted that the family had the possibility of emigrating to Brazil.
The brothers were first housed in Eindhoven, then Driebergen, and finally in Amsterdam with their maternal grandparents, Leon and Gertrud Lewek. That their grandparents clearly cared for them is attested to by the committee paperwork. Rudi was later transported to Westerbork and from there to Bergen-Belsen on 05.04.1944. This is where he tragically perished. Rudi was not alive when the British entered the camp. Hans was imprisoned in Scheveningen from 26.08.1943-17.11.1943. He was then sent to Westerbork on 17.11.1943. He was there until 15.02.1944 when he was transported to Bergen-Belsen. The brothers were separated and then Hans was finally sent on the “lost train”. He did not survive. The boys’ Lewek grandparents were deported to Sobibor in 1943 were they perished. The boys’ father was deported to Auschwitz in 1942 where he perished. A lost family.
Hans-Moritz Lindauer (09.06.1927) is the other boy who did not survive the journey on the “lost train”. Hans also arrived in the Netherlands in January 1939. He was later transported from Westerbork on 12.01.1944 to Bergen-Belsen. On 30.05.1945 he was declared deceased. A lost childhood. A lost adulthood. Hans’ mother, Dina Lindauer née Löwenthal was able to escape to the UK and then to the US in 1940 on the ship Scythia. I found her 1939 register and enemy alien card. Her census information states that she is widowed and an unemployed refugee. The address given for where she was living was 680 Finchley Road. This is just an 8-minute drive from my office at the Association of Jewish Refugees, AJR! Here is a mother-son relationship lost.
21 of the 33 children on the “lost train” had siblings who were on Kindertransports to the Netherlands. The Birnbaum, Fränkel, Levy, and Stern children travelled with their siblings on the “lost train”. Esther Langsam had several Treft cousins who also journeyed to the Netherlands on the Kindertransport, but she was the only one of them on the “lost train”. There were 5 Birnbaum children, 2 Fränkel children, 2 Levy children, and 2 Stern children who were on the “lost train” together. Out the 9 brothers and sisters who were not on the “lost train” with their siblings 4 were murdered in Auschwitz between 1942-1944, 1 was murdered in Schoppnitz in 1943, 1 was murdered in Bergen-Belsen in 1944, 2 were liberated from Westerbork, and 1 other survived. 1 of the siblings, Ruth Amster whose sister, Marion Amster was on the “lost train” was able to flee for a second time in 1940. She actually arrived in the UK on the final Kindertransport from the Netherlands in May 1940 on the SS Bodegraven. Ruth then emigrated to the US on the Empress of Australia in 1943. The Amster sisters had both arrived in the Netherlands on the Kindertransport, but Ruth’s second transport led her to her final escape whereas Marion’s led her towards death, but she astonishingly survived. A sisterhood which was not ultimately lost but separated.
I’ve also been researching Walter Guttman’s story (05.06.1928) for an upcoming talk at the Ghetto Fighters’ Museum, Israel (GFM). He was also a Kindertransportee on the “lost train”. In the GFM’s archive it states that, tragically, in 1937 his mother, Selma Guttmann née Loewenwaerter died of cancer. His father was arrested during Kristallnacht and sent to Dachau. He returned and sadly died at the end of 1938 before he could get remarried to Selma Frank. In 1939, Selma and Betty Loewenwaerter, Walter’s grandma decided to send him and his younger brother, Alfred (who was born in 1931) to the Netherlands on the Kindertransport. Selma also came to the Netherlands as a refugee and found work at the home of the Marcus family in Zwolle. She later went into hiding with them. In 1945, the Marcus family returned to their home, and Selma went with them. Two years later, she decided to immigrate to the US, where she married Max Gruenfeld, who had lost his family. Alfred was arrested in a Nazi raid on 20th June 1943 and sent to the Westerbork camp, and then to Auschwitz where he perished. After Walter’s liberation near Tröbitz he was given money and clothing by the Red Cross and travelled back to the Marcus family. In 1947, he was committed to a convalescent home after catching tuberculosis and was only released two years later. He joined the HaBonim Zionist movement and worked at the Israeli embassy in Amsterdam. In December 1958 he immigrated to Israel. He spent the last fifteen years of his life in the “Beit Juliana” home for the elderly and aided Israelis of Dutch origin. For that, he was awarded recognition by the Queen of the Netherlands on 28th June 2014. A whole family nearly lost but one child survived.
This story is not a lost story, but it has been somewhat lost in terms of its place in the history and memory of the Kindertransport. The stories of the Kindertransportees need to be seen in connection with these other events within Holocaust history because their stories often do not end with arrival on the Kindertransports. As we approach the 90th anniversary of the Kindertransport in 2028, we need to highlight these wider connections to understand the Kindertransport in all its dimensions.
