As work continues on the film, we continue to find more and more treasures. Director Mike Edwards tells about the latest!
Many survivors of the train vividly recall a U.S. Soldier who was among the first to reach the scene. He grasped the magnitude of the situation and sprinted down the hill, holding aloft the Star of David he wore around his neck, exclaiming in Yiddish, ‘Ikh Bin Oykh A Yid! Un Du Bist Fray’ – ‘I am a Jew. You are free!’
Some of the 2,500 survivors locked in the train cars had been skeptical, thinking it might be a ploy by German SS guards to lure them out for execution. But when Cohen began reciting and singing the foundational Jewish prayer, the Shema … they knew. They knew he was genuinely Jewish and that they could trust him.
For years, survivors and researchers have searched for this soldier. One survivor possessed a tantalizing clue: a passport signed by the soldier, ‘Al Cohen,’ with his given name, Abraham or Avraham, written in Hebrew below. It was a treasured keepsake that survivor spoke about until the end of his days.
Despite attempts to find him later in life through newspaper ads, he remained elusive. But recently, our research team embarked on a quest to locate him, starting with Philadelphia, poring over archive material and morning reports. After eight weeks of diligent search, we found a draft card with a signature strikingly similar to the one on the survivor’s passport. I nearly fell off my chair. This discovery led us to locate his regiment which was on the scene at the liberation and family information, ultimately connecting us with a distant relative who shared a photograph of his Uncle, Abraham ‘Al’ Cohen.
We learned Abraham served in the 120th Infantry Regiment, entering the European Theater in the Fall of 1944, and fighting his way through until the end of the war. We even uncovered records of his return to America on the Queen Mary.
Yesterday, we shared the photograph, via our contact in Israel, with the daughter of the survivor whose passport Abraham signed nearly 81 years ago. Her father referred to Abraham as his ‘Angel of Life.’ The photo brought tears and immense gratitude.
‘Ikh Bin Oykh A Yid! Un Du Bist Fray!’
May the spirit and words of this soldier continue to inspire us as we bring this film to America and the world.