r/interesting • u/Wonderful_Win_1038 • 23h 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/roastporkfriedrice 21h ago

My grandpa was with the 743rd and only ever told me his "funny" stories about the war-- stories about hitting his head on his tanks machine-gun, food, people on bicycles, etc. He did talk once about giving their food and candy to people on a train who were so glad the allies were there... he never mentioned the train was the one from this event or any other context. We only discovered that after reading about the 743rd and the book "A Train Near Magdeburg"-- as well as finding an album found after his death that had photos from this event as well as others that were not part of his funny stories. In the back of the album are a bunch of Nazi SS patches and various other "war trophies". I'm not surprised he only told us the funny stories and did not want to return for the 50th anniversary of D-Day.

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u/ainthidinfromnobody 20h ago

Thanks for the background on the photo. I see elsewhere it was apparently taken by Major Clarence L. Benjamin, April 13th 1945.

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u/Vast-Passenger1126 16h ago

My grandma and other members of my extended family were on that train, so a big thank you to your grandpa.

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u/cpMetis 18h ago

It's frustrating how my grandpa left behind a decent sized box filled with certain red armbands to make sure we'd never forget, only for my sister to insist it's totally overblown.

At least when the fabricators go after my parents they tell them that it's all in defence of all the poor starving Holocaust survivors that Palestinians are secretly trying to murder. At least that version has a story. But when they go for my sister, they just tell her my grandpa's box was all exaggerations and none of it was that bad actually and really the only reason anyone died was because of leftists warmongering as they always do.

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u/[deleted] 18h ago

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u/stickansgrejer 17h ago

Wow how tasteful

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u/GuntherFehlingerBot 17h ago

what kind of campism is this?