Product Description

Marion Schreiber's gripping book about the only Nazi death train in World War II to be ambushed draws on private documents, photographs, archive material, and police reports, as well as original research, including interviews with the surviving escapees. One day in April, 1943, resistance fighter Youra Livchitz, a young doctor, discovered the departure date of the next transport train and recruited two school friends to pull off one of the most daring rescues of the entire war. Equipped with only three pairs of pliers, a hurricane lamp covered in red paper, and a single pistol, the men ambushed the train, which was transporting 1,618 Jews to Auschwitz. These three lone men freed seventeen men and women before the German guards opened fire. Miraculously, by the time the convoy had reached the German border another 225 prisoners had managed to escape unharmed and found shelter with the locals. In a testament to the solidarity of the Belgians, no one was betrayed. No one, that is, except the three young rescuers, who were turned in by a double agent, imprisoned, and killed. Like Schindler's List, The Twentieth Train creates a vivid, moving portrait of heroism under impossible circumstances.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #919309 in Books
• Published on: 2004-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 320 pages

From Publishers Weekly
As authors and historians delve into the details of the Holocaust, they discover that the Nazi killing machine produced a long list of little-known heroes, and here Schreiber, a Brussels-based journalist and former editor at Der Spiegel, tells the tale of three such heroes. Armed with only three pairs of pliers, a hurricane lamp covered in red paper and a pistol, the Belgian resistance fighter Youra Livchitz and two friends conspired to pull off the unthinkable: on April 19, 1943, they ambushed a Nazi deportation train headed for Auschwitz and, under a spray of Nazi bullets, managed to free 17 men and women. Not long after, two of the ambushers were caught, tortured and ultimately met their deaths at the hands of a Nazi firing squad. Despite the title, only the last 50 pages or so actually deal with the fateful ambush, an account based on private documents, archival materials and interviews with surviving escapees. The remainder of the book is a detailed account of Brussels, a flourishing city before the war, and its transformation under the Nazi occupation. Although lengthy at times, this background provides a critical framework for the events that follow. Nazi resistance in Brussels, by Jews and gentiles alike, was an extraordinary display of humankindness and courage; such a spirit necessarily grew out of the liberal weltanschauung that had captured the prewar city's imagination. Schreiber's book is both moving and exciting - a celebration of good, rather than a reminder of evil.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The Washington Post

One of the cardinal rules of reviewing books (or anything else, for that matter) is that one must review the book that the author actually wrote rather than complaining that he or she didn't write the book you wanted to read. That should be obvious enough. But what do you do when the book you have just read and are preparing to review turns out to bear only passing resemblance to its title, dust-jacket copy and publicity material?

That is the case with The Twentieth Train. Leaving aside for the moment its actual merits, a strong declaration of caveat emptor must be made at the outset. Not until nearly two-thirds of the way through its text does its ostensible subject -- "The True Story of the Ambush of the Death Train to Auschwitz," as the subtitle defines it -- finally come into view. There is not even any foreshadowing of it in the 160 pages that precede Marion Schreiber's description of how a brave young Belgian Jew named Youra Livchitz began to orchestrate the surprise attack on a train carrying more than 1,600 men, women and children to the death camp at Auschwitz.

The fault, or explanation, appears to lie not with Schreiber but with her American publisher. The English title of its original German edition was Silent Rebels, which is a reasonably accurate description of what Schreiber has in fact done: portrayed the quiet but forceful and effective resistance, by ordinary Belgians, Jews and Christians alike, to four years of occupation by Nazi Germany. Silent Rebels is an appropriate title, but not an especially dramatic one. It is not difficult to imagine that Schreiber's American publisher decided that the way to find a niche for the book in this market was to tart it up as yet another variation on Schindler's List. Hence The Twentieth Train and its melodramatic subtitle.

Schreiber deserves better treatment than that. Her book is not without flaws, but it is an honest effort to depict a side of the war that is little known outside Belgium itself, a story that adds to our appreciation of the lengths to which unknown people went to save not merely themselves and their families but others to whom they had no obligations beyond those of common humanity. The mini-raid on the train to Auschwitz is part of that story, to be sure, and demands a place in this narrative, but many people who read the first two-thirds of The Twentieth Train will find themselves wondering if the train is ever going to arrive at the station, much less leave it.

All of which is by way of warning to the reader rather than commentary on the book Schreiber actually wrote. A former editor at Der Spiegel, the German equivalent of Time or Newsweek, she is a determined researcher and a competent if uninspired writer, though whether this is attributable to her or her translator is unclear. She was drawn to the subject when she met someone who had escaped the gas chambers by jumping off a train bound for Auschwitz. "Journalistic curiosity combined with admiration and respect for the wider Resistance movement in Belgium" inspired her to look into the story, and this book -- a panoramic overview of wartime Belgium, albeit focused on Brussels -- is the result.

By contrast with many other countries that came under Nazi occupation, Belgians mostly "rejected the brutal methods that the German occupying forces used against the Jews" and "proved to be largely immune to the poison of National Socialist racial hatred." Some 200,000 Belgians were active in the Resistance, which surely helps explain why "over 50 per cent, about 30,000 of the 56,000 Jews registered in Belgium, escaped the Holocaust," by contrast with a mere 12 percent next door in Holland. "Silent rebels" were everywhere:

"In all the city halls and council offices there were officials who quietly issued additional food cards for people's relatives who had supposedly been bombed out, or whose nieces had suddenly turned up out of the blue. There were city officials who gave the Resistance blank forms to which only the false name had to be added and the right passport photograph glued. And then there were postmen who intercepted letters addressed to the Gestapo and the war commands if they suspected they might contain denunciations. They opened the envelopes, warned the people denounced in them and delivered the letters two days late, to give them time to go into hiding. 'Service D' -- against defeatism and denunciation -- was the name that the members of this group gave themselves. They probably saved 5,000 people from being handed over to the occupying police."

It helped that Belgium's Queen Elisabeth bravely stayed in her home country (Holland's Wilhelmina escaped to London) and, in the words of one who spoke directly to her, was "deeply impressed by the despair of the Jewish population in the face of mass deportation." Her efforts to intercede on the Jews' behalf were cynically rebuffed by Adolph Hitler, but surely her example was an inspiration to her people. It helped, too, that the military governor of Belgium, Alexander von Falkenhausen, was a "picture-book Prussian aristocrat" who "held Hitler and his party comrades in profound contempt." Eventually pressure from Berlin wore him down, and he authorized the shooting of hostages, but he must have done so with the greatest reluctance. His deepest belief was that "law, justice and humanity stand over everything," and during most of his regime he was able to put principle into practice.

Others were considerably less admirable. Kurt Asche, "Adolph Eichmann's representative in Belgium," was a venal sybarite who held life-or-death power over Belgian citizens and imprisoned or executed many of them. A Polish Jew named Icek Glogowski betrayed numerous Jews to Asche: "As a spy and unofficial cop, 'le gros Jacques' helped to fill the trains to Auschwitz," as did Pierre Romanovitch, known as the "White Russian"; it was the latter who informed on the heroes of the train ambush and sent two of the three to their deaths. The Belgian Jewish Council wasn't much help, either. Its members were decent men, but they believed that they could fend off Nazi brutality "by being willing and compliant," and they also "saw armed resistance as being primarily the long arm of Soviet Communism." They gave the Resistance no encouragement and significant opposition.

Still, three men in their twenties managed to halt a train loaded with deportees in April 1943 as it made its way from "the picturesque little town of Mechelen in Flanders" to Auschwitz. Most of those aboard chose or were forced to stay (and in the end some of these actually survived the camp), but others were luckier: "In total, 231 deportees fled the convoy on 19 April 1943, before the German border. Twenty-three Jews died in the attempt, either under the hail of bullets from the sentries or by falling badly. Every escapee from the death train to Auschwitz could count on the help of the Belgian population. No one was betrayed. 'L'honneur des Belges.' "

It is neither exaggeration nor sentimentalization to say that Schreiber has told an inspiring story. What makes it so is far less the bold attack on the train than the steady courage, decency and humanity of those countless ordinary Belgians who refused to knuckle under. It's too bad that the book's American publisher failed to understand this, and is presenting The Twentieth Train as something it is not.

Copyright 2004, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved.

From Booklist
The twentieth train, departing April 19, 1943, was to transport 1,600 Jews from the Mechelen concentration camp outside of Brussels to their deaths at Auschwitz. More than 200 prisoners would be freed, however, in a wooded grove in the Belgian countryside, by three Resistance fighters armed with pliers, a pistol, and a hurricane lamp colored red to mimic a stop signal. These three gutsy men and their broad circle of Resistance connections are in the foreground here, but the real focus of this book is the Belgian people, who hid the escapees from the Nazis as but one incident in years of resistance and resilience. Schreiber, a former editor for Der Spiegel, has a journalist's eye for the small stories that surround the breathtaking ones, and the brave and tragic tale of the three train ambushers is made all the more poignant by the montage of memories of Brussels and Mechelen provided by survivors. Originally published in Germany in 2000, this selection is a valuable addition to the history of the Resistance. Brendan Driscoll
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

This book is more about heroic resistance to mighty and ruthless military power than about one particular act
There were many heroic acts of resistance to the German occupation in World War II, and naturally some were more significant than others. Unfortunately, there were people who were more interested in personal advancement than anything else, which made any act of resistance one containing a degree of personal risk.
While the title emphasizes one particular instance, an armed attack of a train transporting Jews to the camps by partisans, the book is really more about a resistance movement. Belgium was unlucky to have been invaded and occupied by German forces in both world wars. Therefore, when it occurred for the second time in 1940, the population understood what would happen.
The Belgian people engaged in passive acts of resistance whenever it was realistically possible and did a great deal to shelter their Jewish residents. Many Belgians risked a great deal, even their lives, to protect Jews from being captured and sent to the death camps. That, more than one single attack on a train, is the message that should be taken from this book.

Some Hid, Some Collaborated, and a Few Resisted....
It may not be possible for someone who is not fluent in German to review THE TWENTIETH TRAIN, for what we have here is an English translation of the original, and the book gives no information as to the education, experience, or other qualifications of the translator. A disturbing number of passages exhibit the use of pejorative adjectives to describe both policies and people associated with the Nazi presence in Belgium during the second world war. At times, policies are described as "stupid" and people as "sadistic thugs." As any college freshman would be admonished, this is indicative of lazy and unimaginative writing. Rather than painting a clear word picture of the situation and allowing the reader to draw his own conclusion about the quality of the people involved, the writer merely uses insulting adjectives and doesn't appear to care whether or not a reader agrees or, worse yet, makes an unfounded assumption that readers will all agree with his assessment. This is the sort of inferior technique, if indeed we can even give it the status of a "technique," that one expects to see in newspaper "letters to the editor," not in a published, non-fiction history. However, there is no way for me to ascertain whether the lack of authorial skill is a weakness in the author, Marion Schreiber, or in the translator, Shaun Whiteside.

The title, too, is somewhat misleading and, again, the problem lies in the English translation. In actuality, the ambush of the prisoner transport train is almost a minor occurrence in the book and occurs well toward its end. Most of the book is concerned with portraying the growing level of control exerted by the Nazi occupational government in Belgium, the increasing danger to the Jewish population, and the evolving reaction of the people, ranging from attempts to hide, to collaboration, and to armed resistance. The train ambush, while highly symbolic (either of bravery or of desperate bravado), was truly a minor, probably almost insignificant, action in terms of the overall war effort. This is not to say that it was not worthy of a book but rather that it is actually a rather minor part of the book itself.

In essence, therefore, to ballyhoo the ambush in both the book title and on the dust jacket illustration, is to give it an emphasis that is not carried through in the book. Dare I call it deceptive marketing? At any rate, the deception, if we can use so strong a term, is definitely attributable to the English-language publishers, not to the author. Schreiber originally gave her German-language book a much more accurate title, "Stille Rebellen," or "Silent Rebels."

Schreiber's contribution to the historical literature of Nazism is, I believe, valuable. It leaves the reader with a better understanding of the impact of the Nazi occupation on the civilian population of Belgium. It also speaks to the diversity of human nature in its reaction to a threatening situation. Some ran and hid, some cooperated and rationalized away their doubts, some profited financially, and a few resisted.

Of especial interest to me was the reaction of many of the Jewish people even after they were incarcerated and awaiting deportation to Auschwitz. Despite rumors wafting back from the East, they simply refused to believe that they were to be transported to their deaths and clung stubbornly to the explanation that they were indeed going to labor in the fields and factories of Germany to support the war effort, a hard life but certainly a survivable one. Their inability--or was it their refusal?--to see reality and their willingness to submit en masse to the directions of the Nazi police, even to the point of refusing to attempt an escape from the transport train when the opportunity arose, was one of the most revealing facts of the entire book. This acquiescence and self-delusion, of course, is in no way uniquely indicative of Belgian or "stateless" Jews of the 1940s; one sees it throughout all of human society today, particularly in political and military arenas.

I feel that Schreiber has written an important book in that it not only adds to our knowledge of history but that it also is a commentary and, if one will see it, a warning to contemporary societies as to the fragility of perceived safety and security and of the dangers of political naivete. It is a shame that the English translation comes across as uninspired and even more so that publishers have misrepresented the scope of the book by inventing a more titillating title for marketing purposes. For the significance of its content, I would surely rate THE TWENTIETH TRAIN with four or even five Amazon stars. The three-star rating I finally decided upon reflects the shortcomings of the English translation and use of a deceptive title. Nonetheless, the book is certainly worth one's time to read and especially to think about.

The Twentieth Train
A fascinating story of University students who were inspired to create the circle of friends and then others to resist against the Nazi oppression in Brussels and Belgium during the Second World War. It was filled with facts of the bravery of so many. The genesis of the students from the Free University of Brussels having joined before the war into the group, Le Cercle du Libre Examen, were able to save numerous Jews and others from the Holocaust. Well worth the reading.