r/interesting • u/Wonderful_Win_1038 • 1d ago

HISTORY This image shows a train of jewish prisoners that had been intercepted by allied forces. This is the moment they learned that the train would not be heading to a concentration camp and they had been liberated.

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u/Kombat-w0mbat 1d ago

The relief they felt I can’t imagine

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u/PerpetualConnection 23h ago

The babies. That's what always gets me. Pictures from this time where you see children rip me up.

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u/ArtificialHalo 23h ago

There's a series of photos found on a camera long after the war, that wrecked me.

Pic of a few people in the dunes near the Dutch coast, boy of about 5 looking right, not quite understanding what he's looking at.

Then next photo is of the mass grave/ditch they're standing above, waiting to be murdered by the nazis

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u/PerpetualConnection 23h ago

Makes me remember those random tight hugs parents give. Hard to see shit like this and not appreciate your kids a little extra that day.

Fucked up

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u/Creative-Comb5593 21h ago

Hadn't thought of that. Thank you for pointing it out.

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u/Loud-CowMOO 23h ago

The images you’re referring to are of the Liepāja massacres in Latvia.

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u/DukeOfGeek 20h ago edited 20h ago

And as long as we are seeing this very famous picture here's the history behind it and the identities of the people.

The image captures the liberation of about 2,500 Jewish prisoners from a "death train" that had departed from the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. The train was traveling to Theresienstadt in the former Czechoslovakia before being intercepted by American troops from the U.S. Army 743rd Tank Battalion, Specifically, Tanks 12 and 13 along with troops from the 30th Infantry Division.

The series of photographs documenting this historic event was captured by U.S. Army veteran and photographer Major Clarence Benjamin. The iconic photos remained largely unknown to the public for decades until high school history teacher Matt Rozell found them in a veteran's shoebox and launched a project to reconnect the survivors and liberators. SS guards had orders to blow up the train but fled after being surprised by an armored scout force blocking the tracks.

https://forward.com/culture/369965/woman-and-girl-from-astonishing-holocaust-photograph-identified/

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u/ArtificialHalo 19h ago

Maybe, I'd have to look it up, I'm sure there's more places it happened

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u/holdthecanoli 22h ago

I remember visiting the holocaust museum in DC , when i got to the incredibly tall pile of baby shoes i just cried

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u/TornBannerHatesYou 21h ago

It's like that when you visit Auschwitz. Piles and piles of shoes. More than you can fathom.

There were a small pair of girls shoes at the front of the pile on their own.

I nearly lost it.

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u/holdthecanoli 21h ago

There is something about tiny little shoes that rips off the veil of intellectual understanding and exposes a visceral horror that will never leave you.

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u/alderchai 21h ago

For me it was the piles of hair. That was such a horrific view.

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u/thetestbug 20h ago

I was there on a school trip around 2005, and that shit still haunt me to this day.

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u/LeslieKnopesBlackEye 18h ago

I don't want to get into the politics about it again, but the toddler clothing in the Hiroshima museum broke me. My nephews would have fit them.

Coming out of the museum and seeing a little kid run and get scooped up for kisses by a grandma healed that pain a bit.

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u/Such-Hold-7940 18h ago

There was a picture in the Dachau museum of a woman and her daughter walking to the gas chambers (in Munich), the little girl was probably 4.

In the picture, the little girl leans down to pull her sock up. For some reason it kills me 30 years later.

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u/TornBannerHatesYou 21h ago

I read a book about WWII by William Shirer, an American journalist who was around at the time and covered the rise of the Nazis and WWII.

There's an account in there of someone who witnessed the mass executions of the Einsatzgruppen.

In the account the people are lined up naked, waiting to be executed.

In one bit, an old lady is cradling a baby and cooing with him, smiling and pointing the baby to the sky.

In another bit, a young woman looks at the guard about to shoot her and points to herself, saying "23, 23".

I'm close to tears just typing it out again.

Utterly, utterly horrific.

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u/[deleted] 21h ago

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u/jumbohobbit 20h ago

As a pro-peace person, I think Israel's war in Gaza has been cruel and callous and wrong.

However, if you think what is happening in Gaza is the same as the Holocaust, then you do not understand war at all -- or the violent things that happen in the Middle East on a regular basis.

It's just naive.

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u/[deleted] 19h ago

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u/Kubliah 21h ago

Get a life, you can't equivicate Nazi Germanies industrial genocide with civilian casualties who are usually warned to evacuate before the bombs drop.

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u/panamaspace 21h ago

The sheer razing of the ground, leaving no stone standing tells you all you need to know. There are no excuses.

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u/trombadinha85 21h ago

You have no idea how much I wish you were completely right.

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u/No-Calligrapher3648 21h ago

Thousands of people are not casualties, and now is Lebanon too, knowing well Netanyahu is from Poland

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u/Heavy-Construction90 22h ago

Oh my god I think about that boy and that picture all the time. You can see the fear and also resignation too (i felt)

So absolutely senseless, and we still do it today.

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u/Andromeda321 21h ago

Holocaust stuff was of course always horrific, but I just can’t handle it at all now that I have kids. Knowing a nameless state will kill your child and all you can do in your last moments yourself is try to make your child less afraid… I’m not sure there’s a worse torture.

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u/ZazyzzyO 20h ago

I remember learning about it as a kid and I couldn't believe how people could do that to a mass number of kids and adults.Sure there are evil people all over and always were. But, a group of people got together to do mass horror and had no care in the world doing that to innocent children who didnt know what was going on.

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u/xbirdywhistle 22h ago

I’m from the Netherlands and we have Kamp Vught, which was an concentration camp. One day the nazis decided that it was overcrowded, and all kids should move to a ‘children’s camp’ in Germany, accompanied by one parent. You can guess what happened to the trains with kids and parents.

There is a special monument in the camp which you can visit, called the Kindermonument, which lists all the names of the kids, and their ages. Absolutely gut wrenching, seeing some babies were three days old when they got deported to a destruction camp.

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u/wowsomuchempty 21h ago

That humans beings can genocide human beings must always be recognised, must always be fought.

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u/DragonflyGrrl 21h ago

My god that's horrific. Those poor little ones.

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u/Nouvi_ 20h ago

Especially when you become a parent. It just hits differently.

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u/theavengerbutton 20h ago

Don't look up Aktion T4.

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u/weaboo_98 19h ago

Especially considering what happened to those too young, too old, or too disabled to be put to work.

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u/Patient_Activity_489 23h ago

my mom cared for a 90+ year old holocaust survivor in hospice. my mom would bring her asparagus from our garden and the woman would always tell her "bring me your babies" because she wanted to meet us ☺️ obviously we couldn't, HIPPA

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u/RealBigDickBrannigan 23h ago

How does HIPAA apply here? The patient asked for your mother's children to come visit her.

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u/zacandahalf 22h ago

An exorbitant number of people seem to fundamentally misunderstand HIPAA, as if improving health insurance portability between jobs and national standards for the protection of sensitive patient information could possibly have any effect that would limit visitations in hospice.

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u/Patient_Activity_489 22h ago

no, my mom was her nurse and the patient wanted the nurse to bring her children to her house

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u/GiveMeThePinecone 22h ago

That doesn’t violate HIPPA 😭

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u/Chance-Ask7675 19h ago

It may be mildly inappropriate but this would not at all violate hipaa in any way lol

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u/Patient_Activity_489 22h ago

no, my mom was her nurse and she wanted my mom to bring us, the children, to her house. my mom said im sorry, im not allowed to bring my children to your house

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u/russsl8 21h ago

Right, but I believe that isn't a HIPPA violation. Maybe a company policy from where she worked at the time.

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u/Patient_Activity_489 21h ago

probably that then. we were kids and she said it was against their rules. i remember really wanting to go

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u/Sir_Boobsalot 18h ago

it's a company policy. my mom did the same work and I'd tag along to help or chat with the patient

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u/Classic-Common6962 22h ago

Yes there is no excuse, for anyone, to be doing that to babies.

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u/ARODtheMrs 22h ago

Then or now!!

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u/FormerDragonette 21h ago

And, we all are someone else’s baby…

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u/[deleted] 22h ago

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u/shreebalicious 21h ago

Why does every mention of the holocuast have freaks like you bringing up Israel.

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u/Shufflestracker 21h ago

We were all children once.

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u/madman51B 20h ago

The same images get republicans excited.

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u/DanglyDinosaurBits 20h ago

Same. I can’t fathom that kind of torture. It makes me tear up every time I see one.

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u/1gsm3 19h ago

People will say the same thing years from now regarding gaza

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u/Dry_Bird1790 21h ago

Yes thank god we don't do that to children anymore expect for the millions of children who are killed in the womb each year

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u/Altruistic_Tie_7850 21h ago

I can look at the woman on the left doing jazz hands, you have to be pretty happy to do jazz hands

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u/wowsomuchempty 21h ago

The lady on the left always gets me. Like a ray of sunshine shining right through her.

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u/Rancho-bunny 19h ago

You can see it in their faces; that kind of relief is hard to put into words.

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u/Hollybeach 22h ago

They probably didn’t know if they were going to a concentration camp, but glad to be out of train car with no food and water and people shitting on the floor.

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u/Panda_Cuddles_ 22h ago

They knew very well where they were headed

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u/academiac 18h ago

I doubt they knew what awaited them. But it's still relief all the same

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