The Last Train: A Holocaust Story

Gr 7 Up—In 1944, Paul Auslander's town of Karcag, Hungary, is occupied by German soldiers. The Nazis have taken his father to a labor camp, and the 5-year-old, his 10-year-old brother, and their mother are moved to a ghetto. Their lives there and in a series of concentration camps, in cattle cars, and on a sugar-beet farm are presented from the points of view of the two brothers: Oscar, as he tries to shield his rambunctious brother from the guards and support his sick mother in the interminable check-in lines, and Paul, whose exuberant curiosity threatens his life. It is on a train from Bergen Belsen to what is sure to be certain death that the prisoners are liberated by the Americans. This fictionalized story is told by Paul's wife, who was inspired to do so by the coming together of survivors of that last train and their liberators at a symposium at Hudson Falls High School, New York, in September 2009. It was a photo of the last train discovered on the Internet in 2008 that prompted the survivors to speak at last of their terrible ordeal. The author relates the thoughts of the children as they experience the horrors of the camps: hunger, beatings, starvation, disease, and death of other prisoners. The vivid content is frightening, the language clear. Informative black-and-white photos include the family before and after the war, the survivors on the day of liberation, and American soldiers. The last two chapters offer a moving account of the reunion of survivors and liberators.—Jackie Gropman, formerly at Chantilly Regional Library, VA