“It was a hunger march”

Forcibly displaced from Ukraine

Born on July 10, 1926, Petro Mishchuk came from Kysylyn, a town near the Polish and Belarusian borders. “We were a very poor family, a very poor village,” he said years later, describing his early childhood. German troops occupied Kysylyn in late June 1941. They seized the 14-year-old boy in the forest, tied him up, and took him to the Jewish ghetto in the belief that he was a partisan. In the spring of 1942, he was put in an overcrowded railroad car at the nearest station and deported first to Auschwitz, then to Berlin, and then via Magdeburg to Buchenwald.

Forced labor, hunger, and death in Ohrdruf

He passed through 13 camps in total and was required to perform extremely hard forced labor. “The worst camp of all was Ohrdruf SIII,” he says looking back. Petro Mishchuk was initially forced to fence in the camp grounds – which were miles away – with barbed wire. Later, he worked day and night in the tunnels of the Jonastal quarry, heaving sharp-edged boulders onto the wagons of a small construction train with his bare hands. Meager rations of spinach and turnips were served once a day. “People were dying every day,” he later remembered. He had to stack the dead bodies in a barrack “like firewood” and watch as SS guards levered the gold teeth out of the jaws of the corpses before burning them in mass graves in the forest.

Endless, grueling marches

The rumbling of advancing American tanks already audible, the SS initially drove the prisoners from Ohrdruf to Buchenwald concentration camp starting on April 1, 1945. Sick prisoners who were unable to walk were shot in the roll call square. But with US troops approaching, this camp was also evacuated on April 7, 1945. The SS forced 28,000 prisoners to set off on a march. One in three of them did not survive the death marches.

After seemingly endless, grueling treks, Petro Mishchuk arrived in Sachsenhausen, north of Berlin. But this concentration camp was being cleared too. The prisoners were sent further northwest in a long convoy.

There was nothing for them to eat along the way. Villagers would sometimes toss them some cabbage or potatoes, often half-rotten. Petro Mishchuk collected beechnuts when they reached a forest. Some prisoners became so desperate that they even ate grass and tree bark. “It was a hunger march,” the Ukrainian citizen recalled, decades later. “The International Red Cross distributed food parcels once. Three people had to share a single ration.” When they arrived at the North Sea, rumors spread that they would be herded onto a ship and drowned.

His group was liberated by American troops before this plan could be put into action. But Petro Mishchuk had lost all faith in humanity. Like many other concentration camp prisoners, he escaped and made his way back home – without money, clothes, or a suitcase. He clung to railroad cars and hitched rides in passing automobiles until he reached his Ukrainian homeland.

Extreme violence

In a 2023 interview he gave as a very elderly man, he summarized his time in Nazi captivity as follows: “I spent five years in the camps. It was the same as being dead. They took me away in the spring of 1942. And I was gone until 1945. […] I passed through 13 camps in total. I saw how people were herded like cattle, burned and tortured, how their teeth were knocked out… Yes, I saw! I also carried – carried the dead! I am the only survivor from there.” Petro Mishchuk’s memories reflect the extreme violence meted out by the Nazis in the final phase of their rule – intended in part to eliminate witnesses to their crimes.

Perspectives on liberation

Our dossier marking 80 years of liberation presents a range of perspectives on the end of Nazi rule and its aftermath.

Forgotten helpers: Displaced persons and their commitment to a critical appraisal of Nazi crimes:

After liberation, large numbers of displaced persons were not just survivors – they became witnesses, activists and organizers. Many campaigned for documentation, education and justice – often on their own initiative and almost always under extremely difficult circumstances.

Facing the guilt: The days of concentration camp liberation through the eyes of German neighbors

How did Germans perceive the suffering endured by concentration camp prisoners? Civilians – children and adults alike – were confronted with the horrors of the Nazi regime not only during its rule, but also in the days following liberation.

Beyond imagination

What did the Allied soldiers find when they reached the camps and liberated the victims of Nazi terror? The soldiers were not prepared for the horrific scenes that awaited them, and the images haunted them for the rest of their lives.

Defeat, Liberation or Victory?

How was May 8, 1945 commemorated in the GDR, how is it remembered today in the FRG and in the countries that fought against the German Reich? How has the view of the end of the War changed and what does it look like today? These are a few of the questions we address in our digital learning module “Suspicious: A Landscape of Crime”.

After liberation: Nazi perpetrators on the run 

With the collapse of the Nazi regime, many perpetrators fled – and many evaded accountability. Guilt was systematically concealed, prosecution avoided and trials prevented.