Trains at a dead end

Title: Trains on a Dead Track

Author: Fred Schwarz

Binding: Paperback

EAN: 9789067073530

Condition: Moderate

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Condition descriptions:
- As New: Hardly any signs of use, almost as new.
- Good: May show minor signs of use, such as some discoloration or a name on the endpapers, but generally no underlining or notes in the text.
- Fair: Book in fair condition. May show signs of use, such as discoloration, reading creases in spine, underlinings, notes, light soiling at edges, dog-ears, or a crooked spine.
- New: Book is new.

Description:

'The last transport to Auschwitz has left. Someone on this train will be the hundred thousandth, but no one will congratulate him.'

It is one of the many references that Fred Schwarz makes in Treinen op dood spoor to the transports that left from camp Westerbork. Not surprising, because he saw them all, almost a hundred deportation trains. He experienced daily that the lives of the imprisoned Jews in the camp always revolved around the train. The train that made family members, friends, neighbors and acquaintances leave.

Trains on Dead Track is a treasure trove for anyone looking for information about Camp Westerbork. But it is also a love story. And with that, it is more than a report that only covers personal history, but essentially a history of the camp in the period from July 1940 to September 1944.

Together with the letters of Etty Hillesum and the diary of Philip Mechanicus, Treinen op dood spoor (Trains on a Dead Track) by Fred Schwarz is one of the most valuable ego documents about Westerbork.

Fred Schwarz (Vienna 1923 – Badhoevedorp 2012) met his future wife, Klaartje (Carry) van Leeven, in Westerbork in 1942, with whom he had two children after the war, Rolf and Madelon. Immediately after the war, he worked as a sewing machine mechanic, just like in Westerbork. His career ended with a large American company, as a manager in Europe for aluminum alloys. After his retirement, he published his memories in 1994 and gave many lectures about his Holocaust experiences.