4.3 • 2.6K Ratings
🗓️ 21 January 2025
⏱️ 30 minutes
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How a town in Poland – once in Germany - is discovering its troubling past.
Eighty years ago Soviet troops liberated Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi extermination camp. Over 1.1 million people, mainly Jews, were murdered there. However, there is an aspect of those terrible days which is less well known and which 80 years later is still being uncovered and still resonating: the death marches.
As Soviet troops approached, in January 1945, SS soldiers at Auschwitz-Birkenau forced some 60,000 prisoners to march west, in freezing temperatures. Weak with hunger and disease, those who fell behind were shot.
This is the story of how eight decades on the search for the truth behind one of those death marches is being uncovered. For years the history of a death march passing through the once proud German community of Schönwald was hidden.
It is also the story of how descendants of the original inhabitants of Schönwald are having to confront the role some of their relatives may have played in the Nazi project, and how today’s Polish inhabitants of the town, which is now called Bojków, are grappling with what happened on their streets. Amie Liebowitz’s own great-grandmother was murdered Auschwitz-Birkenau, while her great-aunt was rescued by the Soviet forces. She speaks to those on both sides – German and Polish – who are uncovering this history.
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| 0:00.0 | This is the documentary from the BBC World Service. I'm Amy Liebuwitz, on assignment in southern Poland. |
| 0:07.8 | We are in the centre of the Boykuf now and we see the church, we see the old school. Now it's the post office. |
| 0:17.1 | We see the parish house and the main street. |
| 0:22.4 | Shistov Khrinsky is a teacher of religion and history |
| 0:25.6 | at the local primary school in this Polish village of 3,000 people. |
| 0:32.1 | Until 1945, this was actually part of Germany |
| 0:35.8 | and Boykhov was the proud German village of Schoenwald, |
| 0:39.9 | with 6,000 residents. |
| 0:42.6 | A large Catholic church dominates the main village square, |
| 0:46.0 | where we're standing on cobblestones. |
| 0:47.7 | We are standing now directly on the stone, |
| 0:53.2 | which belongs to the street. |
| 0:55.6 | This is original stones from the street. |
| 0:58.7 | We collected the old stone and we put on this square. |
| 1:03.4 | But we didn't know before that this is the silence witness of the dead marsh. |
| 1:11.2 | Shishdath is referring to the death march from Auschwitz Berkenau 80 years ago. |
| 1:16.3 | Thousands of prisoners, mainly Jewish, were forced along these cobblestones by SS guards. |
| 1:22.4 | Those who collapsed from starvation and exhaustion were shot. |
| 1:27.2 | So you're saying where we're standing here, |
| 1:30.5 | this is where the prisoners walked past, right here? |
| 1:35.5 | Yes, this is the main street in the village. |
| 1:37.8 | Now it's called Rolnikov Street. |
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