WALK IN MY SHOES

Collected Memories of the Holocaust

HOLOCAUST AND WORLD WAR II

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Death March-- Succumbing

as told by Peter Kleinmann in his autobiographical memoir.
 


Peter Kleinmann.

 

A few weeks after Yom Kippur [Sep-Oct 1944], our morning routine changed; instead of the morning roll call, thousands of inmates were sent marching through the gates of Gross-Rosen. As we passed through the gate, our numbers were recorded again and we were given a blanket and ordered to march. As far forward and as far backward as I could see, there were men in files, five abreast. We had no idea where we were going.

This incessant marching continued every day for about six weeks. after several hours of walking, a truck with food rations would stop and I would be given the usual piece of bread or soup, provided the food supply lasted until it was my turn.
At night we stopped in barns, bombed out houses, and schools. after storms we sunk ankle-deep into the soft mud. Pulling our feet out was such an effort, only to sink down on it again, that I thought the heavens were cooperating with the Nazis. Some days new faces appeared alongside me. They might have been recent arrivals from new transports or inmates who became visible as people fell during the day.

This incessant marching continued every day for about six weeks. after several hours of walking, a truck with food rations would stop and I would be given the usual piece of bread or soup, provided the food supply lasted until it was my turn.

At night we stopped in barns, bombed out houses, and schools. after storms we sunk ankle-deep into the soft mud. Pulling our feet out was such an effort, only to sink down on it again, that I thought the heavens were cooperating with the Nazis. Some days new faces appeared alongside me. They might have been recent arrivals from new transports or inmates who became visible as people fell during the day.

As time went by and we became weaker and the weather colder, the nights were endured by huddling together to benefit from our collective body heat. Some men were so frail and feeble that the pressure of bodies during the night suffocated them. I remember leaving behind several men who were either too weak to move or had died during the night. Pyres were constructed and dead and near-dead men were burnt to ashes. The blood-chilling screams of the walking dead who died in the flames are still with me.

Kapos patrolled the march, beating anyone who wobbled or slowed down. You had to be constantly on guard, for if someone fell and you tripped over him, you could easily be trampled to death.

How much worse can it get?

This was already beyond my imagination....How could I know the end to such terror? Was it my destiny to walk until I died?

Choices were made every morning about where to enter the lines. If you chose the outside it was easier to see those who had dropped, but you were more exposed to the elements and it was colder. Men fell like sacks. The corpses were loaded onto trucks that reeked of the sour smell of death. On the inside of the file it was warmer, but the fallen were not as visible and you risked tripping over the dead, which would result in sure death.

I don't remember days individually. The entire march became a hazy time of anguish and constant hunger. I don't know exactly how long I marched but I think it was about six weeks. The last image I can recall occurred as I looked up from a valley and saw a castle on top of a hill; the town of Flossenbürg. I remember wondering if I would be strong enough to climb the hill to the castle. The lines had dwindled so much that both the front and the end of the file was visible. This was the castle in the town of Flossenbürg. It reminded me of the castle in Munkács where my father was interrogated, and I was overcome with fear that this would happen to me too.

I lost the constant dialogue between past and present; of experience and meaning. This is what consciousness and inner life meant for most of us. I lacked the excitement of the next experience. I could only fear it. The eager and anxious tension of anticipation, of intention, that normally drives us through life is what I lost forever as a result of this Nazi experience.
 

Peter retracing the death march he was on from Gross-Rosen to Flossenbürg, September through October 1944. Thousands of marchers trekked through the villages of Gross-Rosen. In freezing temperatures, the emaciated prisoners, clad only in a prisoner's uniform, endured all weather conditions. Those who survived a day's grueling march collapsed for a few hours nightly in barns, open fields, and abandoned buildings, such as this one located in the Polish countryside.
(Photo: Naomi Kramer)

 

     
 


 

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