A powerful memory of a death march
WE WERE without a voice, in the bitter cold, on a long, long walk. That was a death march.”
Susan Pollack, a Hungarian Jew who was liberated from Bergen-Belsen aged 14 and survived the Holocaust, spoke these deceptively simple words this month at a virtual event hosted to mark the launch of The Wiener Holocaust Library’s new exhibition focused on the death marches, the forced evacuations from the Nazi camps at the end of the Second World War.
Her remarks were brief and composed, yet disturbing in their detail. She was forced on a death march from a slave labour camp to Bergen-Belsen. The experience shapes her life to this day. We often hear concern about what will happen to Holocaust education and memory “after the survivors die”. This is not a new debate. But it also implies that we’ve learned all there is to learn from survivors, such as Susan, who are very much still with us.
Remarkably, Susan spends much of her time speaking to learners of all ages for key Holocaust education organisations in the UK, such as the Holocaust Educational Trust.
In 2020, her webcast for Holocaust Memorial Day, was broadcast to thousands of students. Prompted to speak about her experiences in Belsen, Susan provided a fleeting account of the death march.
Yet, as her testimony during this month’s event showed, the extreme brutality of the march deeply marked her experience, and that of tens of thousands of other survivors of “liberation” and survival, just as much as Auschwitz-Birkenau and Bergen-Belsen.
Contrary to widespread belief, survivors did speak about their experiences, including the death marches, in the days and months following the end of hostilities. Most were in terrible physical condition – and some did not survive very long after they began to receive medical assistance.
Soon after war’s end, evidence was gathered about the tortuous evacuations that sent prisoners on brutal marches that crisscrossed Germany. These “mobile concentration camps” came within sight of many villages and towns across the country. Bodies of those executed and discarded en route were found, and while many could not be identified, most were reburied with some form of dignity.
The people who survived, witnesses who saw what happened and victims’ bodies that were recovered form the basis of what we know today about the marches.
The Wiener Holocaust Library’s latest exhibition, Death Marches: Evidence and Memory, which will be on view in London and in Huddersfield at the Holocaust Exhibition and Learning Centre from May 2021, describes a significant part of the history of “liberation” that is not fully understood or researched, and also reveals the process of gathering evidence and how scholars have used this evidence to write the history of the death marches over decades.
The death marches were an important part of “liberation” for Susan and thousands of other survivors.
We hope the exhibition and related events – soon to be announced and featuring both survivors and scholars – will highlight survivors’ voices, including those who are still living and willing to speak, if only they are asked.
Dr Christine Schmidt is Deputy Director and Head of Research, The Wiener Holocaust Library