The story also chronicles a high school teacher’s journey of bringing to light this hidden story from the past and the incredible events that followed.

A team of Emmy award winning filmmakers from Columbus, Ohio is completing work on the documentary mini-series which will bring this incredible story to life. The series was released in 2025 and will be seen in more than 300 million television households worldwide.

This episode has been screened for a number of people, including prominent film industry executives, and we can safely say that for those who have seen it, it is a profoundly moving and timely as we commemorate the 80th anniversary of Liberation.

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Director & Producer:

Michael Edwards was given a camera by his parents in sixth grade, and has never looked back — always telling stories “through the lens.”

Since founding The 5 Stones Group in 2002, he and his team have won 18 EMMY awards for their work and are continually hired by the world’s largest brands.

Among the Group’s remarkable achievements is the documentary Searching for Augusta: The Forgotten Angel of Bastogne, which follows the story of the heroic Augusta Chiwy, a black Belgian nurse who performed life-saving volunteer service in a US Army medical aid station during World War II. This uplifting film, directed and edited by Edwards, has now been seen by countless people around the world and has received many of cinema’s highest honors.

As soon as Edwards heard the “train near Magdeburg” story, he shared Matthew Rozell’s passion for bringing this story to the world. Together they have interviewed liberators and survivors, working all the while to raise the funding needed to create a film that will do justice to this extraordinary chapter of human history, and preserve the memory of everyone who has been part of the story since 1945.

Rona Arato is a member of Beth Tikvah Synagogue. Her late husband, Paul, was on the train that was liberated by those American soldiers. She has written a children's non-fiction book called The Last Train about Paul's Holocaust experience and how his much later discovery of the famous photo of the train on the Internet led to a reconnection with other survivors and their rescuers in New York.

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS PROGRAM IS NOW FULL. THANK YOU.