Hi,
here are few interesting photos showing how it really looked like.
Photos were made from Soviet plane in winter 1945 over Frisches Haff.
Brgds
AD
Evacuation of German civilians through Frisches Haff
- Andrzej Ditrich
- Member
- Posts: 1826
- Joined: 27 Sep 2004, 18:51
- Location: Gdansk/Sopot/Gdynia
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Evacuation of German civilians through Frisches Haff
Last edited by Andrzej Ditrich on 12 Feb 2017, 14:12, edited 1 time in total.
- Andrzej Ditrich
- Member
- Posts: 1826
- Joined: 27 Sep 2004, 18:51
- Location: Gdansk/Sopot/Gdynia
- Contact:
Re: Evacuation of German civilians through Frisches Haff
My mother,uncle, and grandmother were refugees there about January 23,1945. She said planes and staffed and bombed both the army vehicles and the refugees in horse drawn carts. Very few pilots maybe a couple refused to fire on the civilians. A military checkpoint had all unnecessary items thrown into a huge pile such as ancient bibles given as a wedding gift that were passed down for many generations. This was to reduce weight on the ice. Each driver of horse drawn carts was given a bottle of schnapps to keep them alert and given the instructions to space a distance from another cart to minimize weight on the ice. A few unfortunate people still fell through the ice and my mother still remembered the horses screams as they drowned. They made it to the Vistula delta but the bridge was hopelessly overcrowded with people and army personnel fleeing. Grandmother decided to turn back home because she wanted to give her husband a chance to find the family because he was in the Baltic sea with the Navy. That is when the family was captured by the Red Army. She also told me that when they were on the main road south of Konigsberg, before Frisches Haff, that everyone was forced off the road to let 7 black limousines pass through. Must of been Koch and his staff leaving Konigsberg, albeit without the famous Amber Room. My only niece, then aged 2, died on that road and was buried in a snowbank by the side of the road. My mother didn't mention the concentration camp at the now resort village of Stettin but did see the holes carved out of the seaside snowbank that fleeing people huddled in.
Re: Evacuation of German civilians through Frisches Haff
Perhaps you meant Stutthof ?the concentration camp at the now resort village of Stettin
Stettin had a population close to 390.000 in 1943.