On April 27, 1945, Max Schmidt called me aside and in front of the barn gave me a surprising message. "The director of the Swedish Red Cross, Count Folke Bernadotte, will be here tomorrow to take some of you to Sweden," he confided. "But he only wants prisoners who are from the West. He won't know where any of you are from. I won't stand in your way if you tell him you are from somewhere in the West."

"What will happen if I stay?" I asked.

"I don't know. No one can predict what will happen. The Kommandant of Neuengamme, a concentration camp nearby, is in charge of all prisoners here now. I know him, and I don't trust him." Then he added, "You would be safer out of here."

What he said left me gasping. Encouraged, I dared to ask more. "Herr Lagerführer, actually you are still in charge of us. I mean, you could order the guards to let us go, couldn't you?" He did not respond.

After this talk with Schmidt, my fellow prisoners immediately surrounded me. Obviously I could not tell them all that Max had said to me. I did reveal that tomorrow the Red Cross would come to take all Western nationals to Sweden. My brother and I conferred about Schmidt's suggestion, and we both agreed to do as he said. Neither Josek nor I any longer considered Poland our country. We decided to take a chance and hoped our bluff would work. I immediately began to tutor my brother in what I remembered of my limited French.

"Josek, when they ask you, 'D'où êtes-vous?' you answer them, 'Je viens de la France.' Should they ask you, 'Quelle ville?' you answer, 'De Bordeaux, monsieur.'" I had picked Bordeaux because of Dr. Lubicz. I remembered that he came from there. We were both awake that night, full of anticipation about what the next day would bring. We tried to envision what Sweden would be like. Could we rebuild our shattered lives there? I wanted to see America, the land of my dreams. After our many disappointments, would this be the last day of captivity?

It was April 28, 1945, and we lay in the clothes we had not removed since we got here. At the first move of the barn doors, we dug ourselves out of the soft straw and went outside and waited. At about nine thirty, as our Lagerführer had predicted, they came. Four white paneled trucks, preceded by a black limousine with a Red Cross flag fluttering from the fender, drove up the lane to the barn and stopped. Three smartly dressed men in Red Cross outfits emerged, and we were immediately ordered by our Lagerführer to assemble.

One of the men carried an elegant baton under his arm, which made me think he must be the count. We waited, as the Lagerführer had ordered us to do, in our customary rows of fives. Before us, we thought, was our long-yearned-for freedom. Finally the "count" spoke in German: "All Western nationals step forward." ^*

About fifty prisoners, most from France, Holland, and Belgium, stepped out in front of us. I knew most of them well. No Englishmen or Americans were among us; the Norwegians that had been with us in Fürstengrube were all dead. I tugged my brother's jacket, and we both walked out at the same time to stand with the Westerners. Seeing this, many Eastern and Central Europeans followed, doubling the number. Everything went as we had hoped, and we were marched toward the Swedish trucks.

On their canvas tops were huge red crosses. My heart beat loud and fast. I was terrified and overjoyed. I was an imposter stealing a precious reward. We tried to mingle with the real Westerners, so as not to be detected. We were anxious. It was difficult to comprehend that all this was actually happening. Finally the four Swedish drivers lifted the canvases and dropped the truck tailgates and summoned us. "Step up," they said.

Our bluff worked. I cannot describe the feeling. We were free of scourging, beating, and thrashing. Josek and I looked at one another to be sure it was not just an unlikely dream. Afraid that someone would order us back, we wanted to be the first to climb onto the trucks. Mendele had already found the right chum, the freckled, red-haired young Dutchman, Kopelmann.

The trucks drove slowly, in a gentle downward pitch to the sea, swaying on the rough gravel road. Offshore, only about one kilometer away, sat a Swedish freighter, its flags flapping in the light wind. The dinghies moved toward the shore. "We know that not all of you are from the West. Those who are not we cannot take," announced the count. Then he looked around and waited. My brother leaned on my arm. I heard my heart beating and felt my knees about to buckle. What now? The memory of Schmidt's predictions nourished my fears. A minute of silence followed, but it seemed endless. When he got no response, the count came close and looked each of us in the face.

My lie covered my face like a mask. My stomach cramped, and a lump grew in my throat.The count kept walking and darting his eyes at each of us, his face expressing his thoughts: Which of you has the audacity? But he was not sure who. Not one was willing to go back to the camp. He grew impatient, and spearing us with his anger, he spoke. "As long as no one is willing to admit it, we will take you all back." Still, no one gave us away, and not one of us talked. Could he not understand why? Could he not understand that one would do anything to be free of this suffering? After years of degradation, dehumanization, after years of living with death, we yearned for freedom.

The three Swedes conferred, and after a while the count spoke again. "For the last time, we warn you. Whoever really is a national of a Western country, step out. The rest please stay back." That got the results they wanted. The real Westerners stepped forward. The rest of us no longer dared.

Only we prisoners and the Swedes were there. Not a single German was present. Even if rescuing the Westerners had been their initial objective, could they not bend a little? I approached the count and pleaded with him. "Can't you take us? We are condemned. Look at the condition of some of these people. If you return us, they will be dead tomorrow."

"I don't have enough room on the ship," he said. Looking at the huge ship, I could hardly believe that it would sink with the addition of a few more passengers.

"It's only a short trip. We will stand on deck. Please take us," I pleaded. I looked at the rest of the Swedes, asking them for help. But this did little to ease their rigidity. If they agreed, they did not say so. They remained unmoved. More desperate inmates, their limbs swollen and their bodies numb, also pleaded with the count. He remained indifferent and just ordered the drivers to take us back. Liberty and freedom were gone; it all seemed like a dream, like a beautiful dream, and we had had such a brief taste of freedom. The Swedes, however polite, lacked mercy. We felt condemned and were bitterly devastated. I never learned who gave us away. Count Bernadotte had reached an agreement with Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler that allowed him to take all prisoners except Germans. To this day I still don't know why he did not take us.

With heavy hearts we had to board the truck that would take us back. It was one o'clock when we returned to Neu Glassau. Schmidt and Hermann were gone. Scharführer Pfeiffer and his guards were now in charge. I tried to talk my way out to the village, but Pfeiffer would not let me go, nor did Gerta come with food. We made a pathetic picture as we lay in a state of lethargy, in an existential emptiness, without hope. Starved, we raided the straw-covered mounds for the few half-frozen potatoes that might sustain us for a few more days.

On May 1 we learned that Hitler had committed suicide. But Kapo Wilhelm still proclaimed, "The war will yet be won!" We knew he meant by the Nazis. Despair shrouded us like a fog. Early on May 2 we were awakened while it was still dark. Gunfire was all around us, but once again we had to leave. I looked at the tools that had saved my life, which I kept hidden in the straw. "You can't help me any longer," I thought. I took the dental gold. "Only this is worth saving." After counting us, Pfeiffer insisted that six prisoners were still missing. But in the rush there was no time for a recount. Several shots filled the barn as we left.

These were the last days of the Reich. Hitler had clearly failed. But the Nazis still carried on the war against the Jews. We dragged ourselves on with our last ounce of strength. After marching for one hour we came to Neustadt and were ordered to turn left toward the Baltic Sea. There we found rafts and a dozen SS men standing by. Although the morning sun had begun to creep over the horizon, a heavy fog obscured our vision. We could see less than nine meters in front of us. Each dinghy took thirty people. We were puzzled. We did not know where we were being taken or what they planned to do with us. We feared the worst. About fifteen minutes later something emerged in the fog. As the dinghy drew closer, we saw the stern of a ship. Painted on its side was its name, Cap Arcona.

We soon heard someone shouting down through a bullhorn: "Are you bringing me more prisoners?"

"Yes," the SS men replied.

"I can't take them. I have over four thousand already on board. I have no more room."

"We are overloaded," another man yelled. "Why don't you try the Thielbek or the Deutschland?"

"Our orders are to bring them to you," the SS men yelled back.

The sailor refused. "I am the captain of this ship, and I will not take them. That is final," he yelled down. The SS men, outranked and outmaneuvered, gave up and took us back to shore. Once there, the SS officer in charge, wearing a spiffy black uniform, stepped onto our dinghy and ordered it back to the ship. The other three dinghies followed. As if sensing the matter was not settled yet, the ship's captain was waiting when we returned. The SS man, his voice threatening, ordered the captain to take us at once. The captain insisted as before that he had no room. The exchange was heated.

Finally the captain softened and asked, "How many have you got?"

"In all about five hundred," the SS man yelled back. "Just take those sixty, and I will send the rest to the Thielbek." This compromise worked.

By then the fog had lifted. We saw a rope ladder come down, and we were ordered to climb up. This was risky. Balancing was difficult. We did not have much strength, and we feared that we would slip off and fall into the sea. But how could we resist? So following on each other's heels, with the rope ladder swaying and shaking, we climbed up, and somehow we made it. We followed a fair-haired, cruel-looking sailor below the deck. The stairs were covered with ornate Persian carpets, and heavy mahogany railings were anchored with shiny brass fittings. Elegant gold brocade tapestry covered the walls. One more level down, we passed a large and elegant Victorian dining room. The richness and the luxury of the Cap Arcona was ironic. We, the Unmenschen, the world's rabble, on this luxurious liner?

We followed the sailor further down and came into a long narrow corridor. Finally he stopped and unlocked a heavy metal door and ordered us to pass through it. Then he slammed the door. We were in a new concentration camp, a room about twenty-one meters long and nine meters wide, normally used to store the ship's provisions. It was barely lit and packed with prisoners from Neuengamme. We were below sea level, and the room had no portholes. A passive silence persisted there. The prisoners from Neuengamme had been there for more than a week. They were delivered to this ship by another boat, the Athens. In the last three days they had only had soup and water. They had no sense of time. Their isolation was so total that they didn't know whether it was night or day when we came aboard.

The Cap Arcona was a luxury liner of the Hamburg-Südamerika Dampfschiffahrts-Gesellschaft. At nearly 28,000 metric tons, it was the largest and most luxurious ship of the line and was nicknamed the Queen of the South Atlantic. Ironically, the Hamburg-Amerika line, the preceding company, had been founded by a Jewish immigrant to Germany. Now the ship was to make new history.

I had hunger pains, but I resisted eating my last piece of bread, which was stuffed in my coat pocket. I lay down, squeezed between my brother and a stranger, and immediately fell asleep. Suddenly I felt a tug and woke up, aware of someone standing over me snatching my last bit of bread. I grabbed his arm, and he jerked it away. "Let go of me," he said in Russian, pushing my hand away. "You have just arrived, and I am here four days." He didn't have my sympathy. I am not sure that I then appreciated what he had gone through.

We were in the darkest gloom. Our morale was lower than at any other time I could remember. Some men were sighing, "This is our end. We won't leave this ship alive." But we were the tough and unyielding, having made it alive this far. This was the last straw for us, I thought. What will be will be. I fell asleep once more.

Suddenly we heard a loud bang, and the ship shook violently. Another and another bang followed in succession. We could hear crowds of people running by our door, shouting: "They torpedoed the ship! Just what we expected." We knew that something dreadful had happened. We found that our door was locked, and no amount of pounding, yelling, and pleading for someone to open it helped. Then another bang resounded, and the floor began tilting under our feet. Soon smoke filled the room. Without fresh air, people coughed incessantly. Shouts rose in the room. "We cannot breathe! We are choking!"

We were close to asphyxiation, but no amount of screaming and pleading helped us. No one seemed to hear us. Even when we succeeded in prying a two-meter plank loose from a shelf and were hitting the door with it, no one answered. In the meantime, the sirens wailed, as we heard bang after bang. We were swaying back and forth like one body. The smoke grew heavier and so did the coughing. Suddenly the light bulb went out. The dark frightened us even more.

Finally, purely by chance, someone unlocked our door, and a wild stampede began. Everyone wanted to escape the smoky room. In this chaos I lost my brother, but we found each other while running wildly through the corridors. "Don't go that way," someone yelled, coming into our path. "You can't get out this way. The stairs are on fire." Others we encountered urged us to come with them. "There is another stairway at this end!" they shouted. We were running hard and getting nowhere. The corridor was quickly filling up with smoke, and men were coughing ceaselessly. "We want to get out of here alive," delirious people shouted. We did not know whom to follow.

It was three floors up to the top deck. We frantically ran through the narrow, slanted corridor, bouncing off oncoming people. We passed the dining room and remembered the stairs from our march down. But they were in flames, and smoke was flowing down the stairway. Nevertheless, my brother and I tried to run up. We went a few steps, but the heavy smoke and flames were impenetrable. They pushed us back. I tried again, and so did others, but again we were pushed back, our hair singed. I retreated and then tried again, and each time I had to return. I made a final desperate attempt. I closed my eyes, and sheltering my head with my arms and hands, I ran as fast as I could up the stairs. That too failed. We were terrified, fearing for our lives. We ran back into the dining room. By then it also was filled with black smoke.

We ran, holding on to one another, and saw another corridor leading in a different direction. We followed it and saw daylight coming from one of the men's lavatories. The space was six meters long and three meters wide. An eight-meter shaft extended above this space, and men were lowering ropes. Some people were climbing up, but others were climbing on top of them and pushing them down. No one wanted to die, and panic reigned. Soon even more frightened men crowded the room. When one man managed to stand on another's shoulders, someone else tried to stand on his, until they all fell down.

Finally I tried the rope. Standing on my brother's shoulders, I tried to climb up, but I too was grabbed from behind and pulled down. I failed twice, and then my brother tried his luck. He was also knocked down. I can't recall how many times we tried before I was able to hold on to the rope and climb up to the point where someone from above could grab my hand and pull me up. In this man's grasp I lowered myself back down and helped my brother up. It was not a minute too soon, for the flames reached the lavatory, and others didn't make it. Clouds of dark smoke shot up into the shaft, making further rescues impossible. We heard desperate cries from below.

I looked up into the sky and pondered the reason for our survival. The sun was draped in dark clouds. "Could it be, perhaps, that the prayers of our loved ones convinced you to have mercy on us? God, you often ask us to accept the crazy things around us," I wanted to pray, but my thoughts were too painful, and I was in an emotional turmoil. In this profound chaos, I felt solace in simply being alive.

^* In his book The Curtain Falls, Count Bernadotte makes no mention of having been in Neu Glassau. Hence I am not certain that he was one of the three Swedes. See Count Folke Bernadotte, The Curtain Falls, trans. Eric Lewenhaupt (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1945).

We were three and a half kilometers from the closest shore. Hundreds of prisoners filled the top deck. At the stern about fifty German civilians, including a few women, and at least that many German sailors also confronted with the same dilemma. Nearby were two smaller ships, the Thielbek and the Deutschland. The latter was tipped to one side and on fire. On one of its smokestacks, still visible, appeared a large red cross. A few hundred inmates were struggling in the sea, trying to swim to shore.

However fortunate we were to come out of the hell below, safety was still far away. The Cap Arcona was tilting, and we saw no one coming from shore to help. What's more, not a single lifeboat or life vest was on the ship.

Death stared at us. Pandemonium had erupted, and the bay was full of swimmers. Many more were jumping into the frigid water. Those near the ship were getting nowhere. The downward pull of the sinking ship created a whirlpool, and the swimmers' chances of survival were slim. Physically exhausted and no match for the elements, they struggled in vain, and one after another sank below the waves.

Suddenly from an empty sky planes appeared. We could clearly see their markings. "They're British!" we shouted, and we waved and screamed up to them. "See, we are KZ-nicks! We are concentration camp inmates!" We waved our striped caps at them and pointed at our striped clothes, but there was no mercy. They dropped napalm, as the Cap Arcona shook and burned. On their next pass they came within fifteen meters of the deck. We could see one pilot's face, and we thought we had nothing more to fear. But in that instant his plane's belly flaps opened again, and more bombs flew down. We could track each one as it fell and on impact sent sections of the deck flying about. Other bombs missed us and fell into the sea, creating fountains of water splashing over us. Machine-gun bullets sprayed us and those trying to save themselves in the sea, and then the water turned red as bodies disappeared beneath the waves.

We were terrified as the ship tilted still more. The deck surface was smooth and wet, and we could no longer stand upright. We sat at the edge and held on to the railing. The sea around us was filled with people struggling and losing their battle to survive. Escaping the turbulence of the whirlpool was nearly impossible. The few that managed to get out of the whirlpool were so weakened that they soon vanished under the churning waters as well. It was three in the afternoon. The visibility was good, and we clearly saw the shore. We hoped that someone from shore would come, perhaps to rescue the Cap Arcona's crew, and we could get help. Surely they wouldn't ignore their own people, we thought.

The Cap Arcona was tilted about thirty-five degrees into the water. Our hope of rescue was fast fading. In spite of what everyone saw happening around us, people were still jumping overboard, expecting a miracle. Then the explosives on board were ignited. My brother and I sat holding a railing post between our legs so as not to slide off the deck. Then flames shot up over our heads. Fragments of the deck were breaking off after each bang. The inferno was thorough. We could no longer hang on.

Josek and I stared at one another and looked toward the shore. I knew that he could not help me, nor could I help him. Josek could not swim. And he knew that he would never make it, trying to swim to shore. Each of us had to make his own decision. I looked at the clear, cold, and hostile sea, and every part of me shivered. We were rapidly sinking. Few people were left on deck. The sailors and some SS men were still there. Had they figured out a way to escape this nightmare? If they had, they did not share it with us. I looked to the heavens and asked why this was happening.

It was about four o'clock when I saw David Kot tie a rope to the ship's railing and slide down into the water. When I looked down at him, he shouted up, "Come on down! The rope is strong. Down here we'll have a better chance of being picked up."

I was convinced. But before I decided I thought of my brother. We had survived so much together. I tried to get Josek to come with me. I told him that the planes and explosions on the boat would surely kill us. But Josek, afraid shrugged his shoulders. I understood his apprehension. "Berek, you go," he said. "Perhaps you'll get help for us out there. I will stay here and wait." By then several people were hanging on to the rope, and more were eying it, believing it to be the miracle escape route. There was little I could do to persuade my brother. I took a last look at him, quickly turned my head, and followed Viky Engel down the rope.

I reached bottom. Seven of us were hanging on to the rope and bobbing in the water. The water temperature was cold--only about seven degrees Celsius. My jacket and shoes were soaked and heavy, and I had to take them off. Viky said that his brother, Willy, had left the ship some time ago and swum to shore. He thought that Willy was a good swimmer and that he would make it if anyone could. Desperate people seeking safety continued to slide down the rope. It was strong, but all ropes have their limits.

We were nine, and more were coming. When the tenth person climbed on the rope, it stretched and crackled. "No more!" we shouted up. "The rope will tear." But there was a stampede on deck, and people kept sliding down. I knew the rope would not last much longer. I was wearing trousers, a shirt, and a black short-sleeved sweater. I took off my trousers and let those go as well. With them went the kilo of dental gold. Now I had only my shirt, sweater, and underwear.

People still kept coming and sliding down the rope. With about fifteen holding on, the rope began to untwist. Then it snapped and tore. We all plunged down deep into the dark cold sea. It tumbled and churned, as if we were in a giant washing machine. I had no air. I struggled, my lungs bursting. Finally I surfaced and was able to stay up. David Kot was battling the sea. He couldn't stay on top. He went down, came up thrashing, and went down again with a gurgling sound. This time he vanished for good. Four others who had held the rope with me managed to stay afloat only a few minutes before they too drowned. I knew I would not get very far if I tried to swim to shore. Flinging my arms and kicking hard with my feet, I swam back to the ship. There I could escape the downward pull of the current. Then I moved along, holding onto the ship's hull, until I managed to reach the stern. There I held on and watched.

Hundreds of people were fighting death in the heartless cold waters of the sea. Then suddenly, I saw an object bobbing thirty meters from the ship. It was a small bit of wood. That gave me a new determination. I pulled off my sweater, shirt, and underwear. Naked, mustering all my strength and resolution, I began to swim for it. Every stroke was a major effort. Once I was outside the drag of the whirlpool, swimming was easier. When I came close to the wood, I could see that it was a piece of the ship that had blown free in an explosion. I grabbed it and held it tightly under my chest. "We'll both have to make it to shore, or both go down," I mumbled. "I will not let go of you until you save me."

I alternately kicked with my feet and threw my arms forward. Hard as I tried, the meter-high waves seemed to pull me up and down and keep me in the same place. I realized that I lacked the strength to make it to shore. Then I saw a small boat slicing slowly through the sea. I thought of changing direction and swimming into its path to intercept it. I redoubled my efforts. I stretched and kicked, but in spite of this I fell short. It was a four-meter boat filled with naked men. I knew it would pass before I could reach it. I wasn't the only one struggling in the water. Some were closer to the boat's path. I feared this was the end. I heard people begging to be picked up. As a man was pulled up, I waved and yelled to get their attention. "We can't take anyone.

We have no more room! We are full!" they shouted back to me. But that did not deter me. In a final effort, I lurched, throwing my arms forward to get a bit closer to them. Then I saw how low their boat was in the water, just barely above the waterline. I begged and pleaded with them until I could shout no more. "It's Bronek, the dentist. Let's try to take him," someone yelled. The motor slowed, and the boat turned and pushed in my direction. A minute later a few hands pulled me into the boat. I slumped down, barely conscious. The naked comrades and the sunburned fisherman were my archangels. As the little boat slowly plowed the waters toward the shore, many people were begging to be picked up. "If we take one more, we'll all go down," the fisherman cautioned.

The small engine pushed the heavily loaded boat, as the waves rolled it up and down. The fisherman skillfully manuevered the boat to avoid capsizing. I sat still, with my head between my pulled-up knees, and thought of my brother. I had cheated death once more, but he could not. All hope that the Cap Arcona would stay afloat was fading.

The fisherman's skillful hands brought the boat slowly into the shallow waters. "OK," he said and stopped. "You can make it from here." We struggled to get out. The sun was sinking into the sea. The Cap Arcona was barely visible. We were naked, cold, and hungry and feared capture. Was there another camp or, even worse, another Cap Arcona awaiting us?

Later we learned the results of the gruesome tragedy. Although the precise number of the drowned will never be known, the first estimates were that 13,000 people died in the Baltic Sea that day. Only 1,450, 10 percent of the inmates from Fürstengrube, Neuengamme, Gross-Rosen, and Stutthof camps, survived. Although no one can say how many Americans were captives on the ships, none survived. According to eyewitness reports, the captain of the Cap Arcona was the first to leave the ship. Declassified records released by the British Royal Air Force in 1975 conclusively proved that the ships were indeed sunk by the RAF. Why is still a mystery.

On January 31, 1947, the captain of the Cap Arcona filed the following statement:

Captain Heinrich Bertram's Report to the Hamburg-Südamerika Dampfschiffahrts-Gesellschaft, Hamburg, Holzbrücke.

On February 27, 1945, I took over the command of the 28,000-metric-ton passenger ship Cap Arcona, by the order of the Hamburg-South America Line, in agreement with the Navy Department.

From the captain of the Athen I learned that the transportation of about twelve thousand prisoners from Lübeck had begun. Most of them were destined to be loaded on the Cap Arcona.

For me it was a matter of course to refuse to accept the prisoners, since any responsible seaman knows that the risk at sea of taking on human beings without absolute necessity during wartime is dangerous enough, especially such masses.

On Thursday, April 26, the SS officer, Sturmbannführer Gehrig, who was in charge of transport, appeared, accompanied by an advisory merchant marine captain and an executive Kommando, consisting of soldiers armed with machine guns. Gehrig had brought a written order to my attention that called for me to be shot at once if I further refused to take the prisoners on board.

At this point it became clear to me that even my death would not prevent the boarding of the prisoners, and so I informed the SS officer that I categorically renounced any responsibility for my ship.

Gehrig proceeded to order the transfer of the prisoners from the Athen to the Cap Arcona. Additional transports arrived from Lübeck, so that on April 28, 1945, I had a total of about 6,500 prisoners on board in spite of the statement of the merchant marine officer that the ship was capable of holding a limit of 2,500.

On Sunday, the twenty-ninth of April, I drove to Hamburg to request release from the order to scuttle the ship in case the enemy approached. In Hamburg I was told that Count Bernadotte had just declared that he would take all prisoners except German nationals. Swedish ships were already on their way, and I should speedily return to Neustadt.

It is worth mentioning that on Monday, April 30, 1945, the Athen took 2,000 German prisoners on board that were not supposed to go to Sweden, so that at the time of the sinking of the Cap Arcona, only about 4,500 prisoners were on board.

Signed: Heinrich Bertram, former captain of the Cap Arcona ^*

Martin Gilbert, the eminent British historian, in his book The Holocaust describes what happened to those prisoners who were turned back from the ships:

On May 2, in Lübeck harbor, several hundred Jews who had been evacuated from Stutthof were taken out in small boats to be put on board two large ships in the harbor, the Cap Arcona and the Thielbek. The captains of these ships refused to take them, however; they already had 7,500 Jews on board. The small boats were ordered back to the shore. But, as they neared land in the early hours of May 3, and the starving Jews tried to clamber ashore, SS men, Hitler Youth and German Marines opened fire on them with machine guns. More than five hundred were killed. Only 351 survived.

That same day, May 3, the Cap Arcona was attacked by British aircraft in Lübeck bay. Only a few of the prisoners managed to save their lives by jumping overboard. ^**

We asked the fisherman where we could go to find shelter. He thought a while, scratched his head, and mumbled, "Hmm." Then he directed us to a bakery. "Follow the shore until you come to a house on a hill just off the beach. That's the bakery. No one may be there, but you may find the oven still warm and even some bread." We thanked him and asked him to help those still in the sea. He did not need to be motivated. He had his boat ready to leave. A veil of darkness covered what was left of the Cap Arcona. A ghostlike quiet, broken only by the sound of the surf, hovered about the place where the tragedy of the last twenty-four hours had unfolded. On the shoreline the sea approached and then receded, as if nothing had happened.

As we left the boat I raised my eyes to heaven. "Dear God, my mother and my father and my sister are all dead. Please, God! Let me not mourn my brother too," I pleaded. We moved like shadows along the eerily quiet shore, trying not to be seen. Suddenly we came upon the bodies of two comrades from Fürstengrube. As we continued on, an elderly man came toward us. What if he gave us away?

The man was frightened as well. His eyes widened with each step we took toward him. The sight of ten naked men walking the beach surprised him. "What happened to you?" he asked, and we told him about our ordeal. He hadn't heard a thing, he said. We beseeched him to go and recruit people with boats to save the drowning. But he told us that most people had left the area because of the heavy fighting. "Continue moving along the shore, and you'll come to the bakery," he said, rolling his esses in the North German dialect. Then he walked off, still shaking his head. We hobbled in the deep sand, half frozen, our teeth chattering, and we discovered five more survivors. Finally we saw a faint light. It was the bakery.

Inside twenty more survivors were wrapped in scraps of burlap and rags, sitting piteously around two burning candles. They were talking about who had drowned and who had survived. The conversation was unemotional, as if they were talking about lost objects. I listened, fearing I would hear my brother's name among the dead. I still had some hope, however faint.

The ovens were ice cold. Our biggest concern was being found there and herded into another camp. We had water, and at last we could slake our thirst, but there was not a morsel of food. A few more survivors arrived. Each spoke of the miracle that had saved him. "Your friend Willy must have made it to the shore, but then he died. I saw him lying on the beach," said one. Despite the gnawing hunger, fear of another concentration camp didn't let us rest. A few more survivors trickled in throughout the night. Nearly all who were saved seemed to come to the bakery. Mendele, among the late arrivals, claimed he had seen my brother still on deck when he jumped into the water. Like most of us, he too was rescued by a fisherman.

As daylight began to filter in, a civilian came and ordered us to board two trucks. At first he did not to tell us who he was or why he was here. We feared the worst. When we asked him where he was taking us, he startled us. "We are taking you to a hospital. The British are here." Outside were two open trucks and another German civilian. There was nothing to indicate the previous day's disaster except some debris on the beach. We boarded the trucks, still stark naked. We carried those who were unable to walk. Some still refused to believe that we were free. They suspected another German trick. But there was none of the mustering of the past.

It was six in the morning when we left the bakery. The Cap Arcona lay on one side at a forty-five-degree angle, with part of its hull above the waterline. As the trucks followed along a shore road, we occasionally saw bodies on the beach. Then the two vehicles turned onto a paved highway. Within minutes we saw tanks roll by us painted with white stars. We thought that it was the Soviet star and that the soldiers were Russians. The uniforms and berets of the soldiers, though, convinced us that they were British. We yelled and waved, and they must have thought that we naked men were crazy.

More British tanks passed, and there was more friendly waving. We were swept away by the soldiers' warm-heartedness. Few of us spoke English. We quickly learned the victory sign. They acknowledged us, raising their fingers in a V, which said more than any words could convey. As we came to the center of Neustadt, where two- and three-story houses stood, we strained to cover our private parts.

Finally the two trucks stopped at a red brick building, a German navy hospital. We were led to a large room and shown clean bunk beds with white bedding and real linen sheets. Each of us got a blue nightshirt with a navy insignia on it. The contradiction was inescapable. Yesterday we were still useless parasites. Now we were in such an elite hospital. It was a monumental change for us.

The room was dimly lit. I lay with my eyes glued to the ceiling. So much had happened in the last forty-eight hours that I found it hard to think. If only my brother had survived. My head felt heavy. Resting on the soft, puffy pillow, I fell asleep.

It was noon when I heard voices. I opened my eyes and saw a woman, who was speaking in the distinctive German of the region. The familiar voice of Mendele answered from the bed below. The middle-aged woman had volunteered to care for us. "The doctor ordered special food for you," she said. "It will be ready very soon." Then a nurse came, raised the window shades, and began taking everyone's temperature. I did not feel feverish, but she insisted. She also spoke German. Her orders were to check everyone. Bright sunshine began to flow through the windows, washing the room with light.

At twelve thirty two women carried in a large kettle of real soup, along with bread and butter. "A doctor will be here soon. Until then you should remain in your beds," they said, sounding kind. I had freedom on my mind. Not feeling sick, I didn't need the peace and quiet of the hospital. I itched to see the world. I just wanted to leave. But how could I, without clothes? I looked at Mendele. He was only a boy, much more fit to be seen naked than I was. I did not need to insist. He offered to look for clothes. "I'll scrounge something for you," he said as he left.

I almost gave up hope of seeing him again, but he returned wearing a black tuxedo with tails that was four sizes too big for him. He didn't settle for ordinary clothes. He brought me a German naval officer's uniform with all the insignias, a pair of high laced navy boots, and an officer's hat, belt, and tie. "Where did you find this?" I asked him, surprised.

"Don't ask any questions. Just get dressed. Wait 'til you see what else I have," he said with twinkling eyes. Then he went out and came back pushing a shiny bicycle by its handlebars. "I took it away from a Nazi," he said. I was not surprised. I also felt uncharitable toward the Nazis. The law of survival in the Lodz ghetto and in concentration camps had taught him new rules, which he now followed. It was the law of the jungle.

Many of the released prisoners also wanted to leave, and those who were able walked out with us. I am closing a chapter of my life, I thought. Mendele walked with his head high, proud of this shiny bike, something he probably wanted all his life but never got. Happiness was written on his face. Then, as if in an afterthought, he exclaimed in a sudden burst, "You know what? I saw your brother, Josek."

It was as if he had hit me in the face. Josek alive? How could that be? I took him by his silk tuxedo lapels and shook him. "You saw Josek," I said slowly, looking into his eyes. He looked back at me very seriously. I knew Mendele wouldn't tell me a lie about my brother.

"Honest to God, I saw him," he insisted.

"When did you see him?"

"Just now. I forgot to tell you."

"Are you sure that it was Josek you saw?" I said, not wanting to risk raising a false hope. "What was he wearing?"

"He still had on his camp clothes. I don't know how they survived, but there were about seventy of them. Honestly, I swear by my mother and father that I saw him." I knew it had to be true.

"Mendele! I believe you. Come with me and help me find him." We walked to the center of town, and two more survivors told me that they had also seen my brother. There could be no mistake. I was sure he was alive. I walked up the same hill we had come down two days before with Mendele circling around me on his bike. We saw a group of fifteen of our fellows still wearing their infamous concentration camp outfits. I took a few steps forward, but Mendele was already among them. He found my brother, who was coming toward me estaunded and happy. Under his arm was a Swiss cheese the size of a bicycle wheel.

"Josek! How did you survive?" I demanded to know, as we embraced. It had been a long time since we had cried. All the tears, long held back, came pouring out. We wept like children.

"I followed you with my eyes. When you passed the stern I saw you struggle, and then I closed my eyes. When I opened them again, I saw you being pulled up into the boat. Seventy of us were still on the ship, holding on to the railing. It was dark, and I thought that was it and no one would help us then. But at daybreak, I guess about six o'clock this morning, a boat with English soldiers came alongside and took us off," Josek said, happily exuberant.

One question was always the first thing that a survivor asked another: How did you survive? No two stories were alike. Unfortunately there were few of us to ask those questions. Most of the tenacious, tough, death-defying comrades who miraculously survived years of ghettos and concentration camps, had been devoured by the Baltic Sea. Only a small part of the Cap Arcona was above the water. "No one could possibly be alive out there," I thought.

The Allied soldiers who liberated the area, British and Belgian troops, could not understand how it all had happened. What we told them about the camps seemed so preposterous that they shook their heads in disbelief. It seemed as if they didn't know anything about concentration camps. We were the first inmates that they had stumbled on.

As we were saying our sorrowful good-byes to our dead comrades, those with whom we had endured the worst, a young British lieutenant asked if some of us would come with him and tell his superiors what had happened. Not many of us spoke English. I did a little, though not well. My brother and two others went with the lieutenant and me in an odd-looking car, a jeep. We drove west on the main road, passing hundreds of abandoned cars, trucks, and tanks until we came to a brick building, a former post office. The lieutenant told us that when the German armies pushed to the sea, they had tried to elude capture by leaving their army vehicles behind and switching to civilian vehicles.

We were taken to a major. We still felt apprehensive around authorities, especially the military. That fear continued long after the war. The major was about fifty years old, with a short haircut and a neatly trimmed mustache. He opened a package of cigarettes and offered each of us one. Then he leaned back in his chair and asked in English which one of us spoke his language. I nodded and told him that I spoke a little English. He prepared to take notes. He asked my name and where I was from.

We were concerned about being forced to repatriate to Poland. A rumor that this might happen was circulating at that time. I remembered Max Schmidt's suggestion. "We're from France," I said.

He asked how we got on the Cap Arcona and how it sank. When I told him in my limited English that we saw RAF planes bombing the ship, his chin dropped, and his eyebrows rose in disbelief. Intrigued, he asked more, and then it became apparent that my English was insufficient to fully describe the event. The major called an interpreter. A pretty German girl of about twenty came in and translated his questions into German for me and my answers into English for him. She was visibly moved by the account of our experiences.

The major and lieutenant listened politely. At the end of our interview, the major suggested that we leave the area because of the ongoing fighting. Of course we didn't have transportation. Having seen many abandoned vehicles on the way here, we hoped he would permit us to take one of the cars now littering the roads. He understood the connection. "I can't give you permission," he said, friendly but firm. "There are so many are out there, though. Just take any vehicle you can use. No one will stop you." As for our personal identification, he said, "Your tattoos will sufficiently identify you."

We were excited, and ten of us went to look for the right vehicle. We explored all the cars around, but one car couldn't take us all, so we decided to look for a truck. We searched until we were almost out of town. Then we saw a bus with camouflage war paint. It was a Peugeot, still in good condition. My father had once owned a Peugeot truck. I looked around inside, but the keys were nowhere to be found. It was the perfect vehicle for us, and we wondered what to do. We decided to go into the house and ask the farmer if he had the keys. He claimed that the bus wasn't his, but we thought that he had the keys nonetheless. We were determined to take that bus. When we insisted and threatened him, he went to the bedroom and returned, trembling, with the keys in his hand. He claimed he forgot his wife had put them there.

I started it up and began backing it out onto the narrow street. I had had only limited experience driving a large vehicle, and I soon got into a situation in which I could go neither forward nor backward. The engine stalled. I tried to get it going, but it kept stalling, and I finally gave up. Disappointed, we left that bus standing and went to look for another one.

We must have looked at fifty vehicles without finding a bus like the one we had just left. It was late in the afternoon. We were dulling our hunger with slices of my brother's wheel of Swiss cheese. We searched until we came upon two Italian-made Fiats that looked as if they had just come off the assembly line. The keys were in them, and we decided to take them.

My brother started one, and I the other. We were driving west, as the major had suggested, deeper into the occupied territories. We greeted the soldiers on every Allied vehicle we passed with waves. They looked at us with misgivings, wondering who the bony-faced people in striped suits and shabby German naval uniforms were. The landscape was now free of swastikas. In their place lay the reminders of war: burned-out cars, trucks, and tanks.

Among the people walking on the road was a tall, slightly hunched man carrying a bundle on a stick. He was swaying from side to side and lurching forward as if he had been on the road a long time. As we passed him. someone said, "It's Ohlschläger, the SS guard from Fürstengrube." We stopped, and he continued walking calmly toward us. When he came close we asked him if he knew who we were. He acted evasive and answered no.

"Are you not Ohlschläger, the guard from Fürstengrube?"

This convinced him that it would make no sense for him to deny it. "Yes," he said, stuttering, "but I had nothing to do with the camp." We soon became accustomed to hearing this denial. "I just did my duty. I was just a tower guard." This was another excuse we would hear repeatedly. Now Ohlschläger was no longer the brazen SS trooper. He feared us as we had once feared him.

He embodied all evil to us. Our bitterness and anger were difficult to contain. Some said we should kill him. We all wished him death, but no one wanted to be the executioner. He was repeating his defense. "I was just a plain man doing my duty," he said over and over. Our positions had suddenly reversed, and he was helpless. We were unsure what we should do with him. We were intoxicated with our new freedom and found it easy to forgive. But he did not walk away scot-free.

We gave him a few well-deserved kicks and slaps, and then we left him. His real punishment, we believed, was the defeat of his Führer's Nazi theory. That should bring him enough disgrace. Later we agonized over why we had not dealt more harshly with him.

As we continued driving, we came to Neu Glassau. By then the sun had set. We had nowhere to go, so we decided to drive by the Schmidts' barn, take the cutoff, and go to their house. In front of their mansion was a circular driveway lined with trees. A few of our former fellow inmates who were still there were astonished to see us. They still wore striped suits, as did most of our party. They told us that they had survived by hiding in and around the barn. Unfortunately some others were not so lucky; they had been discovered and shot. Josef Hermann was also there. He preferred to be called Hermann Josef now. Schmidt, our former Kommandant, was gone.

The elder Schmidts, whom we had not seen before, came out of the house and greeted us. He was a well-to-do farmer, a dapper suntanned man of about fifty. She was a plump, well-mannered lady. Max was their only child, they said. They had one of their pigs slaughtered for dinner that night and asked us politely to stay. Whereas just days ago we were Unmenschen and, like cattle, had slept in and around their barn, now we were suddenly honored guests having dinner in the house of our Kommandant's parents. Had our lives taken this big a turn? No German had treated us like this before. Before dinner they served wine and schnapps. For many of us, this was our first drinking experience in years. By the time the pig was cooked and brought to the table, some of us were half drunk, or at least lightheaded. The table was festive, as if set for a joyous celebration, covered with fine china and crystal.

In this gaiety and frolicking, the time was apparently right for a surprise to be sprung on us. In walked Max Schmidt with a bright, friendly smile on his face, his hair cropped. He came up to each of us sitting around the table to shake hands. To me he stretched out his arms as if I were his closest pal. "Dentist, how nice that you survived. Too bad that Bernadotte wouldn't take you to Sweden."

Although I regarded his advice about Sweden as the best deed of his that I could remember, I asked him how he knew I was not in Sweden. "You were not around when we were returned," I said to him. He let it go by, and I did not pursue it any further.

Here we were, pampered guests in Schmidt's house eating a special meal prepared for us. The former Lagerführer sat at the same table as we did, and we all ate and drank merrily together. "Let's not talk about the past. Forget what has happened. It was a terrible time for all of us," Schmidt said. Then he rolled up the left sleeve of his shirt and showed us a number on his arm, just like the ones that all of us had. I couldn't see whether it was tattooed or painted. That seemed not to upset us. We let everything pass with laughter. The prevailing attitude was one of forgiveness.

Around midnight we all were asleep. When I woke up in the morning I saw sparkling sunshine filtering into a few small windows of the feed storage room where I had slept. Next to me were my brother and Srulek Lipshitz. My head was heavy. Something wasn't right, I knew. Weighing what had happened last night, I became troubled. I thought about Max. In the past five months, having sole command of us, he could have let us go free. Showing us a prisoner's number, to make himself seem like us, was particularly distasteful to me. This number, and the fact that his hair was cut short, convinced me that he was strenuously trying to conceal who he really was and wanted to masquerade as a camp survivor. "We cannot allow this," I thought. I could not stay there another minute.

Ten of us decided to leave immediately. Hermann Josef wanted to come with us. "We ought to turn Max over to the Allies and tell them what role he played in the camps," I said. Hermann agreed that he was not entirely innocent. Max was nowhere to be found, but his parents were there, and so, suddenly, was Gerta. It was obvious to the Schmidts that something had changed since last night. They knew that we were leaving. It was difficult to part from our brethren with whom we had shared life for several years. We had little gasoline left and thought we would stop and ask soldiers for "petrol," as the British called it. As we left we were still talking about how we were manipulated by the Schmidts and how Max's insensitive act was particularly appalling.

Five kilometers to the west we saw an British army depot. We drove in and were immediately stopped at the barrier. We explained in halting English to the two soldiers why we had stopped, but they wouldn't let us see anybody. They claimed that no one there had authority in such matters and suggested that we see British Army Intelligence. Nonetheless, we succeeded in getting a canister of gasoline for each car, twenty liters' worth, and also a box of rations. We stopped at two more depots and were told the same thing. None of the British soldiers seemed to take us seriously--as if they did not care. We were baffled and disappointed by them. Since we were not far from Westphalia, Hermann Josef suggested we stop in Lüdenscheid, where a friend of his still lived, he believed. We changed direction.

Every so often we stopped on the road and ate what the British had given us. These were American rations that included canned beef, chocolate, and powdered milk. At eight in the evening we encountered our first Americans close to the town of Münden, not far from Kassel. The road was filled with jeeps and soldiers, some wearing black armbands with the letters MP. They stopped us and told us to move to the side of the road. "Papers?" one of them asked. Eventually, when they saw our tattooed numbers, we managed to get them to understand that we were former prisoners of concentration camps and did not have any papers. "Where are you going?" they wanted to know.

"We are returning home," Hermann said, which was at least true for him.

"On General Eisenhower's orders, all travel by civilians is prohibited at night," they told us. "You're not allowed to drive between eight at night and seven in the morning." Hermann thought that we should turn back and drive to Lüdenscheid, which he thought might be occupied by the British. So we began turning back. "Wait!" one MP said. "We have a place for you to stay here, overnight." We thanked the "officer" (we called everyone officer at first). Among some houses behind the barrier stood a modern two-story house. We could stay there, the MPs said. They also said that there was still food left inside. Unlike the British, they seemed friendly. It did not take us long to find the essentials: enough bread, eggs, sugar, and real Nescafé coffee. It was the first time in five years we were able to cook for ourselves.

Just before we went to bed, we received a visit from a sergeant. First he seemed keenly interested in our experiences. Then he asked if we would lend him one of our automobiles for a couple of hours. We didn't need it right away, and we readily agreed. "But there isn't much gasoline in the tank," we said. Gasoline was a scarce commodity at the time.

"Don't worry," he said. "I'll bring you back all the gasoline you want." What a wonderful coincidence, we thought. We won't need to worry about gasoline in the morning. There were enough sofas and beds for everyone, and we had a sense of leisure that was hard to comprehend. To lie down in a real bed under a soft, downy comforter was an unexpected luxury.

The following morning we made two cardboard signs that read "Concentration Camp Inmates" to affix to our automobiles. But the sergeant was not there, and we began to worry. One of his squad quietly assured us that he would be back soon. "He is probably at his Fräulein's," the soldier said. The sergeant eventually arrived and signaled that the gasoline was in the trunk. He asked us not to fill our cars there, since that would get him in trouble. We checked, and indeed the cans were full. On the road to Lüdenscheid, we unscrewed one can and began pouring into the tank what we thought was gasoline. It lacked the plop, the odor, and the flow of gasoline. It was ordinary water. We could not believe that a friendly American would swindle us that way.

We were on a busy road in wartime, with some water in the tank, unable to move. For the next hour we tried to stop a passing vehicle until finally a jeep halted with army officers aboard. They gave us a canister of real gasoline. At the same time we learned that Germany had just surrendered. It was May 8. The war in Europe was over.

The engine of our Fiat sputtered and coughed but after a while began to idle. As we drove on toward Lüdenscheid, we once again returned to the British Zone. We arrived at the home of the Happes around midnight. Mr. Happe was stunned to see Hermann and even more so the ten of us with him. In spite of the late hour Frau Happe and served us food, a full meal. We were vigilant and still distrustful of all German people, but the Happes' hospitality was genuine. There must have been more like them. Where were they? Why were they just bystanders?

Lüdenscheid was a picturesque small town untouched by the ravages of the bitter conflict. It was nestled in a region called Sauerland, with lush green meadows and bountiful soil. A small river, the Volme, wound along the main road to the county seat of Hagen. Not a single house there bore the scars of war. With great fanfare, Mr. Happe introduced us to the town elders, the mayor, and the police chief. Lüdenscheid had had a small number of Jews before the war. Only one survived. The mayor, a former Nazi, made every effort to show that he had liked Jews. He said they missed the Jews who had once lived there and urged us to stay. He also promised to help find us housing and jobs. They all showed great respect for Mr. Happe's new friends.

Being the first concentration camp survivors in town made us celebrities. My brother and Srulek still wore their striped suits. I had on the navy uniform from the depot at Neustadt. The mayor offered, and we accepted, a complete set of clothing, furnishings, and an apartment. The cinemas in town issued us free passes for life, as did the dramatic theater. Suddenly everyone was our friend. No one, it seemed, had any role in our persecutions, and they all disclaimed their complicity in the Nazi regime. I could not believe that they had come full circle to see us as human again in just a few days.

Seven of our friends left to return to Poland. My brother and Srulek wanted to stay in Lüdenscheid. I was not yet ready to settle there. Hermann wanted to return to Ahlberg, in Bavaria, to his wife and children. When he asked if I would like to come, I accepted his invitation.

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