Schwarzheide to Theresienstadt

Members of the Boys were held in Nazi labour and concentration camps and used as slave labourers.

From 1933-1945 Nazi Germany operated over 1,000 concentration camps and subcamps in its own territory and across German occupied Europe. Among them was the Schwarzheide labour camp a subcamp of the Stutthof concentration camp.

As the camps were dissolved thousands of people, among them members of the Boys, endured horrific evacuations from the camps on foot, in freight wagons and open top trains, as well as perilous journeys across the Baltic Sea. 

The Boys were teenage and child-Holocaust survivors, who were brought to the UK after the war for rest and rehabilitation.

In April 1945, those capable of walking were sent on a death march to the Theresienstadt Ghetto 180km away.

Route

After walking for two weeks the prisoners arrived at Varnsdorf, then in Germany.

They rested two days before being loaded into open topped wagons and spent two days in pouring rain on the journey to Theresienstadt.

There was virtually no food issued during the march. Of the almost 600 prisoners survived less than half survived.