The Spring of 1943 was a desperate season for the Jews of Brussels. Having discovered the departure date of the next transport train to Auschwitz, resistance fighter Youra Livchitz and two school friends organized a raid and pulled off one of the most daring rescues of the enitre war.These three lone men freed seventeen men and women before the German guards opened fire. Miraculously, by the time the convoy had reached the German border another 225 prisoners had managed to escape unharmed and found shelter with the locals. In a testament to the solidarity of the Belgians, no one is betrayed. No one that is except the three young rescuers who were turned in by a double agent, imprisoned and killed.
Marion Schreiber's gripping book about the only Nazi death train in World War II to be ambushed draws on private documents, photographs, archive material and police reports, as well as original research, including interviews with the surviving escapees. Like Schindler's List or The Pianist, The Twentieth Train creates a vivid, moving portrait of heroism under impossible circumstances.