REVIEW: The Nazi Ghost Train: Evasion, Betrayal, and Escape during World War II by Greg Lewis
The heart-racing true story of the heroic rescue of Allied airmen from a Nazi prison train after a devastating betrayal.
In the final hours before the liberation of Brussels in 1944, the Germans loaded more than 1,400 members of the Resistance, SOE agents, and Allied airmen onto a train bound for the Neuengamme concentration camp. What happened next came to be known as the miracle of “The Ghost Train,” as members of the Resistance rose up to delay, divert, and eventually derail the train and save the lives of all of those on board.
The book shines a light on everyday heroes who have been lost to history: such as New Yorker Ted Kleinman, a Jew who risked his life to carry out sabotage behind the lines; young Resistance heroines such as Michou Dumon, who ordered an attempt to kill one traitor and escaped to London to expose another to British intelligence; and Belgian businessman Gaston Masereel, who planned to parachute into his homeland as an SOE agent. Badly hurt when his plane was attacked, he killed all four German soldiers who came to arrest him.
As well as the heroes, there is a villain every bit as keenly drawn and despicable as any in a spy thriller: the most heartless double agent of all.
Investigative journalist Greg Lewis draws upon a wealth of primary sources and his own extensive interviews to bring to life a cast of unforgettable characters, as The Nazi Ghost Train unfolds in a tense and pacy narrative, describing the feeling of terror after being shot down on bombing missions, the fight to stay alive with the Gestapo on your trail, and the gut-wrenching horror of betrayal.
CW/TW – mention of torture of prisoners
Anyone who sat with an evader like John became intensely aware of the esteem and respect in which they held these civilians who had risked everything for them. They viewed them as the *real* heroes.
Review
When I read the blurb for this book, it immediately brought to mind the 1964 film “The Train” in which a (more than slightly deranged) German officer in 1944 Paris who is also a lover of art tries to ship priceless stolen French masterpieces he’s filched to Germany. Urged on by a curator (who is based on real life Rose Valland), a member of the Resistance and French railroad workers desperately attempt to delay and then sabotage the train. The plot is taken from the real life capture of train 40,044. Here though what is being transported on a train from Belgium are people who all face probable death if the train reaches Germany.
He could hear a rumble thousands of feet above, the sounds of heavy bombers crossing Belgium on their way back to Britain. When the drone had gone, it felt as if they had deserted him. The loneliness that remained was almost as bad as any of the physical pain he felt.
The book is excellently researched and well written. But I feel I must mention something I first read in other reviews and then read myself. It takes a while to get to the train parts. The first third of the book covers the stories of Allied airmen who, on the return trip to the UK, bailed out of their often flaming planes over Belgium. We learn about how they ducked and dodged capture before hooking up with members of the Belgian Resistance or just ordinary Belgians who, despite the risk to them and their families, took the men in, fed them, clothed them, and hid them.
‘It is lucky for you that you did not ask those people for help. They are collaborators.’
The second third of the story covers more of the same but also details a legendary monster and his crew who, for the love of money, infiltrated escape “lines,” took airmen and then betrayed them to the Germans, as well as sought Resistance members to turn over for cash.
Moving from friendly safehouse to safehouse had held an element of adventure, a sense of freedom even, with the promise of escape; but now they were stuck in a jail in the centre of an occupied city and facing a barbed wire hell inside the Fatherland, or perhaps something even worse. They felt very far from home.
‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘We will all meet again in Paradise.’ Harris felt sick as the Germans loaded him into a car and it sped off through the countryside and into Brussels. Despite the uncertainty of his own future, he could not help but be overwhelmed by fear and concern for all the people who had helped him and were now in terrible danger. For each airman there had been dozens of helpers.
Prison conditions and treatment of these people once most of them had been captured or betrayed to the Germans is detailed next and it isn’t pretty. Finally, with the Allies racing into Belgium, the decision is made by the SS to empty the prisons and ship the prisoners to Germany via rail where they are destined for a camp specifically for political prisoners where the prisoners face almost certain death. Did the Germans care that many of these prisoners were airmen and shouldn’t have been sent to concentration camps? Nope.
“Stop the train!”
Finally we learn how one train is sent (and few of those prisoners ever returned) and the second, delayed by 48 crucial hours, becomes the focus of Belgian railroad heroes and Resistance members determined to stop the train at all costs.
“Don’t worry, you won’t cross the frontier.”
I enjoyed learning about this episode which for various reasons hasn’t been discussed much and which I’d never heard of but, to be honest, the efforts to stop the train are but a small part of the overall story. But those trying to save the prisoners did so knowing full well that they could be summarily shot if their intentions were discovered yet proceeded anyway. Brave people, doing the right thing when it counted. B
~Jayne
Louis Verheggen was an ordinary working man in his early 40s. He had not been part of the organised Resistance, but everything depended now on what he alone could improvise. Now it was his turn to be in the cab, and he was determined to make a difference. As someone later noted: ‘One man in the right place can be worth a regiment’.
AmazonBNKoboBook DepositoryGoogle
will definitely see if my library has it. Thanks Jayne.
@Sirius: There is a 50+ minute long youtube video that I’ve bookmarked to watch later that features this author telling this story.
@Jayne: Thank you.
Sounds fascinating! I just checked, and my library says Hoopla has it.
@Susan: Great! Thanks for posting that.
this sounds so interesting. thx for the rec!