During the last weeks of World War II, the
SS transported
Jewish concentration camp prisoners on
trains from
Bergen-Belsen to
Theresienstadt as the Allied front pushed closer to the concentration camp. Between 6 and 11 April 1945, three transport trains with a total of around 7,500 people, deemed
Austauschjuden ("exchange Jews") by the SS, were selected to be taken to the other camp. The selection was based on Jews who had held a high position, and could be exchanged for German
prisoners of war. About one-third were
Dutch Jews. The prisoners from Bergen-Belsen concentration camp were put on three trains to be transported to Theresienstadt.Only one train reached Theresienstadt, due to a railway bridge blowing up outside of
Tröbitz by allied bombing preventing the third train from completing the trip. The first was freed by American troops at Farsleben a few days after departing Bergen-Belsen while the second reached Theresienstadt, The third transport would be the one known as the Lost Train. Once Theresienstadt was no longer reachable for the train, holding around 2,500 people, the guards fled the train outside of Tröbitz. It was not until 23 April that the
Red Army discovered and freed the prisoners. Gradually, the guards abandoned the prisoners as Allied forces approached, leaving the Russians to discover a train car filled with the bodies of those dead and close to death, with several additional prisoners seeking shelter in nearby abandoned houses. Of the prisoners, 198 were already dead from
malnutrition and disease; 320 more would die due to complications from exhaustion and disease. It was reported by the female survivors that some Soviets who rescued them had
raped many of them. Unlike the other trains that attempted to relocate Nazi prisoners, this event had some unique characteristics. It was one of the few trains that carried exclusively Jewish prisoners; many of the prisoners on board possessed purchased
passports of foreign countries; and the
German Jews were listed as
stateless under their
nationality. One of the prisoners in the Lost Train who did not survive was composer
Robert Emanuel Heilbut. He died of typhus on the 22nd of April 1945. His notebooks with sheet music and lyrics survived though: more than 36 songs about his experiences in Amsterdam, Westerbork and Bergen-Belsen were saved. == Legacy ==