
There’s a saying that goes: “The strongest people are not those who show strength in front of us, but those who win battles we know nothing about” (unknown).   There is a photo by Major Clarence L. Benjamin that exemplifies this saying perfectly.  This photo that was taken on the 13th of April in 1945 depicts some of the more than 2500 Jews that were crammed into a train cars finally realizing that they had been liberated after leaving the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.  Upon first glace and knowing the minimum amount of background necessary to understand what this photo is about, the viewer can appreciate the beauty behind this photo.  However, it takes knowing what the these prisoners have gone through in the death camps in order to truly understand what these prisoners are feeling and to feel the impact that this picture can have on the viewer.

The concentration camp that these prisoners are being freed from is the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp located in Germany.  Concentration camps were built for many different reasons: “Some for forced labor, others for medical experiments and, later on, for death/ extermination. Transition camps were set up as holding places for death camps” (“Holocaust”).  The Bergen-Belsen concentration camp’s main purpose was to serve as a holding camp to Jewish prisoners and was designed to hold about 10,000 prisoners, but by the end of the war held more than 60,000.  The concentration camp was converted into a recovery camp in March of 1944, meaning the prisoners who were too sick to work were sent there, but still received no medical attention.  Because of the advancing armies, other camps were evacuated and the prisoners were sent to Bergen-Belsen.  The overcrowded conditions caused the food, water, and sanitation services to deteriorate and diseases began to spread (“Bergen-Belsen).  The passengers on this train were heading east for the Elbe River to be relocated because of the advancing armies.  However, the train was stopped because the engineers had then received their orders, to drive the train to, and onto the bridge over the Elbe River, and either blow it up, or just drive it off the end of the damaged bridge, with all of the cars of the train crashing into the river, and killing or drowning all of the occupants. (Rare Historical Photos)

This decision is what decided the fate of so many of the prisoners on the train that day.

Although this picture does not show the conditions of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, the viewer can have a good idea of what they were like just by looking at the train in the back.  It is easy to overlook the train in the back as being insignificant to how powerful the photo is.  However, upon closely looking at the train in the back, it is clear that the train is over capacitated; ““Often, the transports were a sampling of what went on in the camps, cruelty by the officers, near starvation of those being transported, fetid and unsanitary conditions on the trains.  Many did not even survive to make it to the camps” (“Holocaust”).  Prisoners being transported to and from concentration camps were crammed onto train cars with no personal space to even go to the bathroom.  In this specific train that the, now freed, prisoners in this photo were on, cars would accommodate 40 men or 8 horses. They were crammed into all available space and the freight cars were packed with about 60 – 70 people, with standing room only for most of them, so that they were packed in like sardines. (Rare Historical Photos)

As mentioned before, many prisoners did not even survive the train rides to and from the camps.  Many of the bodies from the recently deceased prisoners who were also on the trains would only take up more room on the cars and add to the horrid smell and uncleanly conditions that these people had to go through. 

Upon first glace, the people in this photo might appear to be weak because of their appearance, however these freed prisoners are actually some of the strongest people there are.  The people in this photo almost resemble skeletons, making them appear weak to people that do not know the struggle they had been through to get to where they are in the photo.  What people do not know about these prisoners is that they are not skeletons of people because they are weak, but because they are survivors; “Within the first few days of being at the camps, thousands of people died of hunger, starvation and disease” (“Holocaust”).  In The Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, “an estimated 50,000 people died of starvation, overwork, disease, brutality and sadistic medical experiments” (Bergen-Belsen).  These people not only overcame starvation, but also disease and lasted long enough to see freedom, something that many other prisoners did not have the luxury to see.  The extent to the starvation can be seen in the man in the back holding out his arms.  While some of the people in this photo might not appear to be as scrawny as others, the man with his arms out appears to be the skinniest, but also the happiest.  Even though this man had suffered extreme starvation, all he can feel is the complete joy that comes along with his liberation; he is not feeling sorry for himself and telling everyone what he had gone through, but instead he is celebrating and showing how strong he really is.  

Another reason that someone might think that these people appear to be weak is the amount of emotion that they are showing.  To many, emotion, especially any emotion that involves crying, is seen as a sign of weakness.  If is for this reason that the woman that is seen in the front holding the hand of a small child would be viewed as weak.  The people that would label this freed prisoner as weak do not know that when placed in concentration camps, people were separated from their families; “most of the families who were shipped out together ended up being separated” (“Holocaust”).  The woman in the front is not only showing so much emotion because she has been liberated, but also because she has been reunited with her child.  The pain a mother would go through in being separated from her child is something not many people would be able to bear.  However, this woman persevered and stayed strong enough in order to be reunited with her child.  Prisoners in the concentration camps were also severely punished if they would try to escape: “when someone escaped from the camp, all the prisoners in that group were shot” (“Holocaust”).  Because these prisoners were “stripped of their civil rights and incarcerated to be dealt with as “undesirables” (Crawford 251), they are not used to what it is like to be considered human.  They are not emotional because they are weak, but because they are strong.

Although it is easy to judge a book by its cover or, in this case, a picture by its contents, it is important to understand the background in order to feel the true impact.  Through knowing the history of what prisoners had to go through in concentration camps, viewers of this photograph are able to fully appreciate the power of the picture and commend the people in the picture for their amazing strength.  Survivors such as the ones in this photo are important to keeping the Holocaust in people’s memories: “We still see the Holocaust in the lives of the survivors” (Crawford 252).
