21 April 1945: from Sachsenhausen to Below Forest

“We fed on grass, herbs and even the bark of trees.”

It was 21 April 1945 when 30,000 prisoners left Sachsenhausen concentration camp and were forced to march northwards by their SS guards. They included many women who had already been brought from Ravensbrück concentration camp. All of the prisoners were driven into a narrow corridor between the eastern front and the western Allies with the aim of taking them to Schleswig-Holstein and then across the Baltic Sea. Many of them had only arrived at Sachsenhausen from other camps a few days earlier. On 22 (27??) April about 3,000 prisoners, who had been left behind in Sachsenhausen, were liberated. The SS had waited until literally the last minute: “During the night we heard the thunder of artillery from the battlefront for the first time. It sounded like the rumblings of a distant thunderstorm.” But the hope of liberation was not yet to become reality for Wolfgang Szepaniak and his comrades.

On this 21 April the prisoners were made to form columns, each with 500 people. It was a cold, damp day and their clothing was utterly inadequate. The first prisoners received a few rations, the last were left empty-handed. Already weakened, the people had to drag themselves along for 14 to 20 kilometres a day. Those who could not keep up were shot, the same as on all the other death marches. “All the time we were thinking they were going to kill us,” says Henry Schwarzbaum, who was originally imprisoned in Auschwitz. Apart from this, the columns were repeatedly strafed by low-flying aircraft.

From 23 to 28 April the majority of the prisoners were concentrated in Below Forest near Wittstock. Some of the SS managed to find shelter at nearby farms, but the prisoners were enclosed in provisional barbed-wire fences with a cordon of guards. The prisoners constructed makeshift shelters or sought protection in holes in the ground. They tried to feed themselves on grass, herbs and even the bark of trees.

“We made simple shelters from the forest’s scanty undergrowth, collected leaves and pine needles to lie on. But as soon as we had settled in the SS drove us into the neighbouring piece of forest that was much sparser. We had built our shelters for the SS. New shelters were laboriously constructed. Camp fires were started but then immediately forbidden. When the ban was disregarded the camp commandant ordered the immediate hanging of two prisoners,” Wolfgang Szepaniak recalls.

To this day there are still innumerable traces in Below Forest where prisoners carved their names into the bark of trees as a final testimony to their existence, because many no longer believed they would survive to be liberated. After just a single night they counted 228 people who had died from exhaustion.

On 29 April the prisoners left the forest camp to be driven on again in a north-west direction. The situation became increasingly chaotic. The columns disintegrated, because their SS guards fled in an effort to save themselves.

But the prisoners’ freedom was deceptive: even on 3 May, 25 prisoners were shot dead in the village of Zapel-Ausbau, although the villagers had actually already provided them with help. The perpetrators did not belong to their former guards. The culprits were never found and this final crime still has not been solved.

In 1981 the Death March Museum was established as a branch of the Sachsenhausen Memorial. It is located where the herdsman’s hut once stood, the shelter used by camp commandant Kolb.

It is the only museum in Europe dedicated to this theme. However, until now only the old exhibition created in East German times was on view with a mixture of eye-witness accounts and political commentaries. This is about to change. The museum was closed in April this year. It is to be completely redesigned. The exhibition will focus much more intensely on the one-time victims and their fates. The evidence on the trees is in urgent need of preservation. In addition to this, remains of the prisoners’ meagre belongings have been discovered from the time they were suddenly forced to leave the forest. They too have to be included in the exhibition. The Memorial will offer space for workshops and educational work. The actual exhibition will be relocated to the original site out in the open.

In 1992 the Memorial was partially destroyed in a neo-Nazi attack. There was another attack on the building in 2008. The Death March Museum is the only memorial to the victims of National Socialism in a region where the NPD and other right-wing organisations enjoy strong support from young people: they are so successful, because there are hardly any other activities available for young people in the area. Eventually the Memorial should be able to offer some new openings – a great task for such a small centre.

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