Lilly und Joseph Strauss 1945 in Schweden
On April 30 the commandant arrived
and told us that we were going next
day to Sweden. Nobody believed this, of
course, and we assumed that there
would be a final killing action. But
indeed next day Red Cross cars arrived
and took us away from this hell. As we
were driving and I was sitting next to
Joseph, after many months, I could only
ask: ‘Joseph, is it real or am I
dreaming?’ ”
This extraordinary rescue by the Swedish Red Cross imminently prior to the end of the war was part of
a large scale rescue action with the ”white busses”.
The action resulted from negotiations between Count Bernadotte (Vice President of the Swedish Red
Cross) and Heinrich Himmler, chief of the GESTAPO. Initially the rescue action concerned the
Scandinavian prisoners in German concentration camps, however, at the end prisoners of other
nationalities were included.
To the the rescue action from May 1, 1945 Hilde Sherman remarks: ”Count Folke Bernadotte
and his Jewish aid conducted the negotiations, who paid a per capita reward for each of us.
All of us left the camp pretending to be Polish foreign workers, men as well as women.”
Death march and deliverance
