Exactly two years ago today, Matthew, who’s studied European resistance to the Nazis and written books about it, wrote on this site about a daring and largely successful attempt of three members of the Belgian Resistance to free a trainload of Jews being taken to Auschwitz. It’s a great story about a horror that has so few upsides, and I’m going to link to it again today. Simply click on the title below to go to Matthew’s 2020 post.
Bravery in the midst of horror: the attack on Convoy 20 to Auschwitz
77 years ago, on the evening of 19-20th April 1943, an audacious operation to save Jews being deported to Nazi Germany took place in Belgium. This was the only known organized attempt in the whole of Occupied Europe to stop the deportation of Jews. What follows is an extract from my book The Resistance: The French Fight Against the Nazis (2010). These passages are based on Marion Schreiber’s excellent 2000 work, translated in 2004 as The Twentieth Train: The True Story of the Ambush of the Death Train to Auschwitz.
A quibble about one sentence: “This was the only known organized attempt in the whole of Occupied Europe to stop the deportation of Jews.” Let’s not forget the organized and almost entirely successful
Danish action to help the Danish Jews escape across the Øresund to Sweden before the Nazis could deport them to death camps.
Excellent to be reminded of Matthew’s post – thanks.