Holocaust documentary directed by Gahanna resident debuts

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – A documentary about the Holocaust which was a team effort involving a director from Gahanna and an author from New York premiered Wednesday night in Columbus.

Matthew Rozell, an author and former history teacher, and Mike Edwards, a filmmaker, have been working on "A Train Near Magdeburg" for about eight years. It's about roughly 2,500 Jews being liberated from a Nazi train by U.S. soldiers in April 1945. Oscar Schwartz and 16 of his family members were on the train.

“We survived, thank God, I don't know how, but we did," he said. “You imagine what it is to be 80, 100 people in one cattle car.”

They hadn't eaten in days. Schwartz was seven years old at the time. He said before being on the train, he spent about four months at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. The train he and his family were on was stalled. U.S. soldiers found it outside the German city of Magdeburg. There's an iconic photo from liberation showing a woman holding a little girl's hand.

“Most of the stuff I've blocked out. Certain things I remember, I remember the tanks coming up over the hill," Schwartz said.

Rozell wrote a book about the liberation. The documentary series is based on that. For a while, Rozell and Edwards thought they would just be working with photos. In 2023, they discovered a video of the liberation.

“It’s a story that transcends time and space. And it's the story of the power of love carrying forward through the generations," Rozell said. "We’re on a mission and the mission is to not let this important history be forgotten.”

The first of the four-part documentary series premiered Wednesday night at the Davidson Theatre in the Vern Riffe Center. Schwartz was in the audience to see it.

“Very very very emotional. Because it has to be shown. Great thing they did making a movie out of this. Show the people and the world that this is true. I'm a witness to it. And so are my siblings and everybody else in the family," he said.

Those interested in getting involved with the project can visit the Augusta Chiwy Foundation.

“It’s super important to tell the stories. And not forget. So that's what we’re about. We’re trying to educate young people by telling them stories and that's our mission," Edwards said.