In the memorial in the Belower Wald near Wittstock (Nordbrandenburg), the victims of the Nazi death march will be reminded on Friday. The Brandenburg Memorials Foundation announced in Oranienburg on the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the prisoners of the KZ-Sachsenhausen.
Politicians are expected to be awaited by politics among other Brandenburg Minister of the Interior Katrin Lange and the State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of the Interior, Juliane Seifert (both SPD). Other guests are the daughter of the French concentration camp surviving Marcel Suillerot, Mireille Cadiou, who died in 2024, and the deputy president of the International Sachsenhausen Committee, Andreas Meyer.
At the memorial event, pupils will read quotes from survivors of the death march. Then wreaths are laid down at the memorial. In addition, an “Memorial March” exhibition designed by young people is to be opened and a generation discussion with the International Sachsenhausen Committee is planned.
On April 22 and 23, 1945, Soviet and Polish soldiers reached the Sachshausen concentration camp previously cleared by SS. Shortly before the Allied soldiers arrived, more than 30,000 prisoners were driven to a death march by the SS. More than 16,000 of them were recorded by the SS for a few days in the open sky in the Below forest. Traces of the prisoners can still be seen on the trees there. epd