Olga Horak - Death March

Death March

Horak was still with her mother. They walked the same route they took every morning to the forest but, instead of turning right at the end of the village, they kept going. They could hear gunfire and could see an airplane above them—the Russians were near. The SS guards pushed them, even though they were visibly weak. The soldiers said, "Anyone who stops will be shot". So everyone marched. Horak's cousins, Lilly and Trude, were at the end of their strength. Lilly was suffering from a severe cold, high temperature and a bad earache. They fell out of the column and sat by the road. Horak and her mother tried, in vain, to get them up but they would not move. Horak says, “They had taken enough and were beyond caring what happened to them.” So they kept walking, fearing the worst. An hour later, Russian forces found them by the side of the road.

Horak and her mother had marched for nearly 375 kilometres before arriving in Dresden. There they were shoved, once again, into cattle cars. Before the train left, they were caught up in one of the three air raids by the British Royal Air Force over Dresden. "During the raid, we watched as the bombs fell like manna from heaven. We were not scared, even as shrapnel flew around us..." Within a few minutes of the raid's end, the train was moving again. They were on their way to Bergen-Belsen, with no food or water for the 500-kilometre (310 mi) journey.