A Riveting Survival During the Holocaust: A Review of The Train Baby’s Mother Reflections on Faith, Life, and Good Books

A Riveting Survival During the Holocaust: A Review of The Train Baby’s Mother

 Reflections on Faith, Life, and Good Books

I just had the greatest pleasure of reading and doing the final look-over on an incredible manuscript called The Train Baby’s Mother by Sharon Bernash Smith (OakTara Publishers). Putting aside the fact that the author is a special friend and as Sharon likes to put it, “sister from another mister,” the story is riveting from cover to cover.
The story comes from a new slant about a holocaust survivor. Though I was enthralled each page of the book, there is one particular section of the story that sticks in my mind. I will never forget the emotion I felt while reading it.
The woman and her family (which included her husband, newborn girl, young son, her mom and dad) had just been forced from their home and forced onto the trains bound for the concentration camps. To save the life of her newborn, they expanded a hole they found in the wall of the train and threw the baby out into the snow, in the hopes that the children playing nearby would notice and save her.
Following this, the train stopped at the concentration camp and her family exited from the train. In a series of events, this lady, who had just let her newborn go, was separated first from her young son, husband and dad; they were being sent on a train to another camp. As she watched them board the train, believing in her heart this would be the last time she would ever see her loved ones; a guard is giving instructions to the women. She very quickly realizes there is a separation happening once again. The old are being separated from the young. Letting go of her mom’s hand, the young lady watches her mother walk away in the direction of the crematorium.
In just moments, she was forced to lose all those dear to her heart. And without a moment to take a breath, she is then led to a room, where she is forced to undress and walk in front of strangers and then shower with other strangers.
She’s lost her loved ones, the clothes on her back, her home, her dignity, and then they shave her head.
All of this is forced on her by people who have a deep hatred in their hearts because of her upbringing.
With each word, my heart felt every loss.
In the morning the family she loved was with her. She was home. And then, one by one, she watched those she loved be taken away. She lost everything and was forced to live alone among strangers in a place filled with hatred toward her.
I felt this woman’s sorrow. I felt it even deeper when she stopped believing her Maker was alive, now she was really alone.
What really made it so heart-wrenching was that even though she was a fiction character, it had happened to many, many people.
I’ve had some hard, painful moments in my life, but I’ve never been in a place where I lost everyone I loved with all my heart, and lost everything I had all at once. And I hope to never have to experience that.
There was a very real woman named Corrie Ten Boom who went through similar circumstances. After the Nazis took her and her family from her home she was put in a dark prison cell and left alone for days, not knowing what had happened to her family. She was reunited with her sister, but eventually that sister died, like the rest of the family. Corrie was then alone, trapped in a prison filled with hate and evil beyond a person’s imagination. At first she was angry, unforgiving, but then she turned her heart back to the Lord. No longer was she alone in the cold, dark, prison of hate.
She was miraculously let out of prison one day instead of being killed and then spent the rest of her life telling of God’s greatness and love. Corrie ten Boom had seen life where it appeared God was not there, but discovered He keeps His promises and never leaves His people. As Psalm 139:8 says, “…If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there...”
Maybe you’ve experienced your own loss. It doesn’t have to be as dramatic to hurt so badly that you can’t fully function and to make you wonder if you’ll ever be the same again. It could be anything, a loss of a dream, a scary diagnosis, a death, a relationship, a marriage, a hope, trust, love, or your health. Whatever it is, maybe you’re standing there alone, watching it disappear.
Maybe now your future looks cold and dark. Maybe you feel like there isn’t anyone who really cares, or you’re left wondering, who can do anything about it?
I can give testimony that what God promises in the Bible is true, no matter where you are in your life. No matter what is happening in your circumstances, He is there with you.
And He can give you strength, encouragement, comfort; fill you with love, and whatever you need for your situation.
In the midst of pain, turn to Him, and He will be there. Jesus promised to never leave us, nor forsake us.
Psalm 139:7 says, “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence?” (NKJV).


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