Assisting The SS
Neuengamme concentration camp was overcrowded, and to have space for the Scandinavian prisoners, the SS insisted that prisoners of other nationalities be moved to other camps. The SS commander had no transport of his own and required that the white buses accepted the transports so the newly arrived Scandinavians could only have the Schonungsblock, a barrack building for prisoners not fit to work.
Around 2,000 French, Belgian, Dutch, Russian and Polish prisoners were transported to other camps. During the evacuations some 50 to 100 prisoners died, many more died in the worse conditions in the new camps in which they arrived, having been moved to avoid the advancing Allied armies.
Most of the transports of prisoners for the SS took place between March 27 and 29, from Neuengamme to subcamps in Hannover and Salzgitter and to Bergen-Belsen.
The Swedish sub-lieutenant Åke Svenson wrote:
We could now see how the Germans treated their prisoners in general, French, Belgians, Dutch, Poles, and Russians. It was terrible. This time the Germans had to allow us into the camp as most of the passengers could not walk the minor distance from the barracks to the road. From these barracks a group of creatures were forced, that hardly anymore seemed to be human beings.The last transport for the SS was undertaken as late as April 13, with around 450 so-called prominent French prisoners (senators, leading businessmen, etc.) who the Germans stated would be repatriated through Switzerland. The prisoners would be according to plan, delivered to the concentration camp at Flossenburg. From there they should be transported to Switzerland by the Swiss Red Cross. The promise of the transport to Switzerland was a lie and the camp was full, so the prisoners were taken to Theresienstadt where the "white buses" were heading to pick up 400 Danish Jews.
Read more about this topic: White Buses