Train to Freedom

From Theresienstadt to St. Gallen
In the final months of World War II, several successful attempts were made to save a few thousand Jews from systematic murder by Nazi Germany. Among these were some 1,200 former inmates of Theresienstadt concentration camp, who departed the camp by train on February 5, 1945. Most of the passengers were elderly people, but there were also children present. The liberated prisoners came from Germany (including Austria), the Netherlands and Czechoslovakia. They reached Switzerland early in the morning of February 7, 1945, via Kreuzlingen and St. Gallen, where they were quartered for several days in the school building Hadwig, which today is part of the campus of the St. Gallen University of Teacher Education (PHSG).

Transnational and biographical approaches in research
During the pilot study, the project partners investigated the files on the liberation campaign in their respective countries and partly indexed and digitalized the extensive source material. In the following Research Project, the biographies of the 1,200 rescued Jews form one of the central pillars. The research contributes to a deeper understanding of the effects that persecution and forced migration had on individual life trajectories, biographical narrations, and constructions of identities.

Output in public history and history education
The findings of the research will be facilitated through building a multilingual website on the topic and developing teaching materials adapted to the respective curricula of the participating countries. Permanent exhibitions and/or memorial sites are also planned in the Czech Republic, Switzerland, and Germany to bring the «Train to Freedom» and its memory into the public sphere.