In front of a school class aged between seventeen and nineteen, survivors recounted the terrible events of March 1944, when they were brought to the Azaryčy camps with their families as children. The students listened spellbound as the survivors talked about the inhumane conditions in the camp, where they were exposed to hunger, cold and disease, and where many civilians were abused as living shields.
„Die meisten Häftlinge erkrankten früher oder später an Typhus. Etliche starben daran, die Überlebenden steckten die nachrückende Rote Armee an. Heute vermuten wir, dass alles Teil eines Plans war, eine Art biologische Waffe.“1 (German original)
“Most of the prisoners fell ill with typhus sooner or later. Many died, and the survivors infected the advancing Red Army. Today we suspect that it was all part of a plan, a kind of biological weapon.” (Translation of the German original)
The group’s supervisor, Gisela Multhaupt, explained to the students that most of the prisoners in the camp contracted typhus and that some of the survivors infected the approaching Red Army soldiers. She suspected that this was part of a plan to use the civilians as a kind of biological weapon. The survivors, including Mikhail Zhukov and Yevgeniya Orlova, shared their personal experiences with the students and showed how difficult it is to commemorate these cruel experiences.
The students were visibly affected and asked questions about compensation for the victims and the behavior of German soldiers during this time. Some wanted to know whether there were Germans who helped the prisoners. Arkadij Shkuran talked about a German soldier who gave his mother his drinking bottle, possibly saving her life. However, Gisela Multhaupt emphasized that such forms of help were rather rare.
Finally, they emphasized how important it is for them that young people understand what happened in Belarus during the war so that such events do not happen again.
- Kölner Stadtanzeiger: Erschütternde Kindheit. Access via: ksta.de/redaktion/erschuetternde-kindheit-119287, 22.09.2006 (last checked: 30.06.2024). ↩︎
