Amateur film from Roztoky, April 1945

On 30 April 1945 a train loaded with prisoners from the Concentration Camp Leitmeritz (a sub-camp of Concentration Camp Flossenbürg in the Upper Palatinate region of Bavaria) stopped in the Czech town Roztoky, ten kilometres North from Prague. When the train with mostly open waggons arrived, a huge crowd of civilians had gathered at the train stations in order to help the starving prisoners with food and other supplies. Due to the total confusion at the platform 300 of them managed to escape and were hidden by the local population until the end of the war. Roztoky was not the only town, in which the train caused public attention. After entering the territory of Bohemia and Moravia the train was watched by locals and at many stops poeple tried to contact and help the inmates. Finally, all prisoners were rescued shortly before the train entered German soil.
Roztoky, however, was special due to a large number of visuals that documented the local population's attepts to help, including an eight minute long amateur film. The film depicts scenes from the train station most of them obviously filmed in a rush, some of them, however, depicting also German uniformed guards.

Train Station Roztoky, 30 April 1945, Amateur Footage

© Todeszug in die Freiheit, BR 2018

 The film was made by the local grocer of the town who owned a private film camera and lived nearby. The footage was preserved by his family and publicly screened at the opening of an exhibition about the events in the Mittelböhmische Museum at Roztoky, curated by historian Pavla Plachá and her husband military historian Jiří Plachý.
Parts of the footage was edited into the new documentary film "Todeszug in die Freiheit" (Death Train to Freedom) by Andrea Mocellin und Thomas Muggenthaler, broadcasted on 29 January 2018 on ARD. The segments included in the documentary contain rare close up shots from prisoners resting at the platform. For instance, the photographer pans two men, obviously with the intention to document this unique scenery.

Train Station Roztoky, 30 April 1945, Amateur Footage © Todeszug in die Freiheit, BR 2018

The preserved shots prove the huge number of civilians gathering at the local train station and document their attempts to help the prisoners by supplying food. The following shots also demonstrate that the photographer obviously changed his position according to the scenery, which he was filming. One shot depicts the situation at the station building from bird's eye view. Another shot, depicting young men distributing bread - obviously from a truck - is filmed from a lower position, thus emphasizing the dynamic situation.

Train Station Roztoky, 30 April 1945, Amateur Footage © Todeszug in die Freiheit, BR 2018

Some of the most significant shots were filmed inside the main building. The photographer is depicting the scenery on the platform through the windows of the main hall, in which locals handed over civilian clothes to some of the prisoners, thereby enabling them to secretly leave the station and hide in the town. These inside-out shots also depict uniformed guards, among them not only SS but also ordinary soldiers from the Wehrmacht, Germany's regular army.

Train Station Roztoky, 30 April 1945, Amateur Footage © Todeszug in die Freiheit, BR 2018

The photographer also depicted prisoners sitting inside the hall. These panning shots document faces, looking straight into the camera. One shot also depicts a women with a Red Cross-sign at her arm.

Train Station Roztoky, 30 April 1945, Amateur Footage © Todeszug in die Freiheit, BR 2018

In their documentary on the train's journey, Andrea Mocellin und Thomas Muggenthaler reconstruct also the developments following the departure of the train. In these scenes they present another series of film shots that show a train with open waggons on a bridge, while the commentary adds that, when leaving, the prisoners on the train waved their hands as a sign of new hope that they might been liberated soon.

Amateur Footage, approx. Roztoky, April 1945 © Todeszug in die Freiheit, BR 2018

In one of the next scenes the filmmakers report about another unique act of humanity in Roztoky, when the dead from the train were burried in the local cemetery. The film also quotes from an original speech, blessing the memory of those 'unknown martyrs'. Though maybe not from 30 April 1945, these shots might still originate from the same footage depicted by the local grocer with his amateur film camera.

Amateur Footage, approx. Roztoky, April 1945 © Todeszug in die Freiheit, BR 2018

 Alongside other visual documents, the amateur film from Roztoky was uncovered during the reconstruction of the unique fate of this death train in January 1945. The exhibition, on which the documentary film is based, was realized in cooperation with the Concentration Camp Flossenbürg Memorial. When the first photographs appeared documenting a train from Camp Leitmeritz, it took some time before memorial director Jörg Skriebeleit and his team realized that the different visual documents from different places in Bohemia depicted the very same unique incident. "This is a total exception," Skriebeleit emphasizes the unique character of these visual depictions. "There was no similar footage preserved anywhere in the German Reich, because no other rescue mission like this happened at any other place."
The amateur film from Roztoky documents an extraordinary humanitarian action during the last weeks of the war. These moving images are rare visual documents of the death transports organized by the Germans during the last months of the war, thus extending the mass killings of the camps' prisoners up until the last minute. As such, the footage can be compared to another unique amateur film by Jindrich Kremer who secretly filmed a transport from Auschwitz at the train station of Kolin in January 1945 when the train passed through. However, documenting an act of humanity, the moving images from Roztoky can also be compared with the footage shot by US-American filmmaker Samuel Fuller at the Concentration Camp Falkenau where the local population was ordered to decently bury the slaughtered inmates of the camp.
The documentary film "Todeszug der Freiheit" makes the archive footage from April 1945 now accessible for a larger public. It does not focus on the film itself but on the reconstruction of the events. Hence the photographer remains unknown, while eywitnesses, helpers, rescuers and victims tell the story of the death train from Leitmeritz. Shots from the cotemporary stations with other trains  passing through, as well as amateur-like footage from trains and trams, are used to illustrate the historical reconstruction. Especially the latter has a confusing effect in comparison to the historical footage from Roztoky. However, in its interplay with the voices of the witnesses of these remarkable events, the unique amateur footage filmed by a Czech grocer with his private camera creates the most resonating effects while watching Mocellin's und Muggenthaler's film.

Tobias Ebbrecht-Hartmann