Cap Arcona -Death on the Baltic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cap_Arcona
On May 3, 1945, four days after Hitler suicide, but four days before the unconditional surrender of Germany, the Cap Arcona, the Thielbek, and the passenger liner Deutschland (possibly converted to a hospital ship but not marked as such), were attacked as part of general attacks on shipping in the Baltic by RAF Typhoons of 83 Group of the 2nd Tactical Air Force, commanded by Sir Arthur Coningham.
The attacks were by No. 184 Squadron, based at RAF Hustedt, led by Squadron Leader Derek L. Stevenson, by No. 193 Squadron, based in Ahlhorn (Großenkneten), led by Squadron Leader D. M. Taylor, by No. 263 Squadron, based in RAF Ahlhorn, led by Squadron Leader Martin Trevor Scott Rumbold, by No. 197 Squadron RAF, led by Squadron Leader K. J. Harding also at Ahlhorn, and by No. 198 Squadron based at Plantlünne led by Group Captain Johnny Baldwin. These Hawker Typhoon Mark 1B fighter-bombers used High Explosive 60 lb rocket projectiles, bombs, and 20 mm cannons.
Pilots of the attacking force stated that they were unaware that the ships were laden with Jewish prisoners who had survived the camps. However, some sources suggest elements of British command knew of the occupants, but failed to pass the information on.[
The burning Cap Arcona shortly after the attacks.
The RAF commanders ordering the strike reportedly thought that the ships carried escaping SS officers, possibly fleeing to German-controlled Norway.
Equipped with lifejackets from locked storage compartments, most of the SS guards were able to jump overboard from the Cap Arcona, and they shot any Jewish prisoners who tried to escape. German trawlers sent to rescue Cap Arcona's crew members and guards managed to save 16 sailors, 400 SS men, and 20 SS women. Most of the prisoners who tried to board the trawlers were beaten back, while those who reached shore were shot down. Only 350 of the 4,500 former concentration camp inmates who had been aboard the Cap Arcona survived. Among the survivors was Erwin Geschonneck, who later became a notable German actor, and whose story was made into a film in 1982.
RAF Pilot Allan Wyse of No. 193 Squadron later recalled, "We used our cannon fire at the chaps in the water...we shot them up with 20mm cannons in the water. Horrible thing, but we were told to do it and we did it. That's war."
Severely damaged and set on fire, the Cap Arcona eventually capsized. The death toll was estimated at 5,000 people.
Photos of the burning ships, listed as Deutschland, Thielbek, and Cap Arcona, and of emaciated survivors swimming in the very cold Baltic Sea (seven degrees Celsius), were taken on a reconnaissance mission over the Bay of Lübeck by F-6 aircraft of the USAAF's 161st Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron around 5:00 pm, shortly after the attack.
On May 4, 1945, a British reconnaissance plane shot photos of the two laid wrecks: Thielbek, Cap Arcona.
The capsized hulk of the Cap Arcona later drifted ashore, and the beached wreck was broken up in 1949. It was the second worst seafaring incident in history.
For weeks after the attack, the bodies of victims washed ashore, where they were collected and buried in mass graves at Neustadt in Holstein, Scharbeutz and Timmendorfer Strand. Parts of skeletons washed ashore over the next thirty years, until the last find in 1971.
The prisoners were mostly Jews from 28 different nationalities: American, Belarussian, Belgian, Canadian, Czechoslovakian, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Luxembourger, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swiss, Ukrainian, Yugoslavian and others.
Leave it to the British...after the Nazis, the British have the most Jewish blood on their hands.
--
Shalom, http://www.jpost.com/Magazine/Features/Article.aspx?id=174287
Death on the Baltic
By JEREMY ELIAS
29/04/2010 14:03
An excerpt from a personal look at the 'Cap Arcona' bombing which killed thousands of Holocaust survivors
On May 3, 1945, thousands of prisoners were loaded onto ships in Lübeck Bay, off the northern coast of Germany. They had endured years of Nazi brutality and were within hours of Allied liberation and the end of a seemingly endless hell. Before that hour could arrive, more than 7,000 would be dead in one of the greatest maritime disasters of World War II. My grandfather was there.
I've always known my grandfather's story. I can't remember a particular time when he first sat me down from beginning to end. So it's as if I was born with a vague understanding of what happened, and the rest of my life was for filling in the details. I'm constantly filling in the details. And I'll always be thankful for a grandfather who's willing to let me.
In 1941, at 15, Henry Bawnik was rounded up on the streets of the Lodz ghetto. He would be leaving his family, and the one place he knew. Scared and anxious, he looked around the group of unfortunate Jews. Through the panicked men, and their barking tormentors, he saw David, an older neighborhood friend he'd always looked up to. David was the one familiar face in the newly assembled group. Thank God for David, a protector, my grandfather thought.
David was beaten to death within hours. This was an unfamiliar world, and it wouldn't be a kind one.
From his year in the Lodz ghetto, and some four years in the camps, there are countless stories. They are painted with senseless violence and inconceivable brutality. They are the kind that come from any victim who bears witness to the madness of men and lives with the burden and courage to speak about it.
But the most prominent theme in all my grandfather's accounts isn't murder and destruction - it is luck. And never was luck more imminent than that afternoon on the Baltic 65 years ago.
In January 1945, as the Allies drew closer, my grandfather left Fürstengrube, a subcamp of Auschwitz, for Gleiwitz. It was the first leg of a death march north, continuously missing liberation by days and sometimes hours. In Gleiwitz, they boarded cattle cars. With the lack of food, space and sanitation, the cars became boxes for rotting corpses, starved and diseased. My grandfather and other prisoners began using these corpses as furniture; a couch, a mattress. Death had been a daily occurrence. It wasn't a tragedy but an accepted inevitability. One day he too would be a couch or a mattress, and that was justification enough.
After 10 days in the cattle cars, they arrived at Dora-Mittelbau. Each living prisoner dragged a dead body to a growing pile of skeletons. The indistinguishable men and women, with sunken cheeks and hollowed eyes, were thrown upon each other, a tangled mountain of death. The bodies were burned that night.
In April, the Allies again drew closer, and once again my grandfather was forced to flee an approaching liberation. The Germans were running out of land. Soon there would be repercussions, and a light would shine on years of horror. For that they were not prepared, so they continued to march.
Max Schmidt, a young SS officer and camp commander, loaded my grandfather and the 540 other prisoners onto barges up the Elbe River. With no camps left, he would take them to his family's estate in Ahrensbök, Germany.
The area of northern Germany was becoming livelier. British bombers filled the sky as the prisoners lined up to be counted. Schmidt leaned back with his hands on his hips, slowly dipping his head to the sky. "Ich sehe schwarz," he quietly said. "I see black." But even Schmidt could not foresee the darkness to come.
The article by Jeremy Elias will appear in this Friday's Magazine.
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