The Rail as a Weapon in WW2

[station 559]

My father was the final commander of the Poltava Aerodrome in the Ukraine from 12 April 1945 to 23 June, 1945. Before this, he was a rescuer for POW and downed airmen, English and American, in Poland. He tells of a story near Lublin in March, 1945, of finding POWs killed after liberation from a POW camp. Their fate was that they were tied to the rail (of the line that brought them to the camp), and run over (heads severed). They were emaciated and could provide little resistance. He viewed only the aftermath, as the Russians had moved on routing the Germans.

His stories have been documented in most cases in NARA and AFHRA, except that no documentation has yet been found for this.

Questions:

1. Has anyone heard of such method of atrocity during WW2?
2. Does anyone know if a steam locomotive is capable of doing this to a human...many humans? He claimed to witness more than a hundred.

 

[edwin_m]

You hear about what happens when the train hits people, cars, cows, flocks of sheep etc. Very rarely is the train damaged or derailed and sometimes the driver doesn't even know it has happened, so I'd say this was physically possible.

 

[deltic1989]

1) I have never personally heard of an atrocity of this particular type during WWII, but I have heard tell of Nazis killing prisoners of war and they were capable of other atrocities (The Holocaust for one) so I would say that it is entirely possible that this could have happened.
2) As for the physical possibility. Given the weight of a steam locomotive, I would say that it is entirely capable of decapitating someone. In fact there have been numerous reports of people down the years choosing this very method to commit suicide.

 

[CarltonA]

I believe the Swanage Railway had a suicide a few years ago who caused his own decapitation by a steam loco.