Surviving a Death March

In this video, Elliott Zuckier describes the death march he was forced on during the winter of 1945. He remembers a day in March when he was separated from his father. Source: USC Shoah Foundation, 1995

Transcript:

[00:00-00:06]

Video begins with inter-title in white text on black screen while instrumental music plays and fades into the next frame: In 1945, with Allied forces closing in, the Nazis evacuated the Gleiwitz concentration camp and forced prisoners on a death march towards Germany.

[00:07-02:11]

Cut to Holocaust survivor Elliott Zuckier, sitting in his living room, and looking to the left of the camera. The camera shows his face and shoulders as he speaks during an interview conducted in Calgary in 1995.

>> Elliott Zuckier: Sometime, either at the end of January or maybe the first days of February…

[00:13-00:19]

The name “Elliott Zuckier” and the location of the filmed interview, “Calgary”, appear in white text above Elliott's right shoulder.

>> …the Russians moved up there very, very close. They took everybody out and we marched. That's what they called it. Most of the survivors went through this. It was a death march. And it was like a coin, flip a coin: you die or you live. Because there was no provisions. It was yes, no, you slept outside under some farmer's barn, you fed yourself some grass and dandelions, whatever you could find. Some farmer would spread some stuff, when he could see you coming. Once in a while there was some provision when we stopped over on that trip. This took – it's hard to believe – a long time. In one of the stopovers – it had to be March or so – we stopped in a camp. I don't know the name. They separated me from my father. That was '45, sometime around March. I didn't know what happened to him. And they took us a few days later. They took me out again, and we marched. All of a sudden, besides being very weak, because really there was nothing to eat, I lost the will and emotionally – I didn't have my sister, I didn't have my father. Where am I going? How long before–? You could see people just sit down, and the SS men came over and they just shot him.

[02:12-02:21]

Music plays for the remainder of the video. Three credit pages appear in white text on black screen: Interview conducted by Riki Heilig, Calgary, 1995, USC Shoah Foundation

Directing: Helgi Piccinin; Editing and Colorization: Michaël Gravel, Helgi Piccinin; Audio Mix and Original Music: Pierre-Luc Lecours. [Logo for Chaire de recherche du Canada en patrimoine ethnologique]

End of transcript.