The Brno death march (source: rozhlas.cz)
That meant a 30+ km long march, undertaken mostly by women, elderly people and children, to the border. Due to bureaucratic problems they had to return back from the border to a concentration camp in town Pohořelice – which caused death of several exhausted or infected runners, as the total lenght of the march was 56 km.
There is an interesting controversy around the fatalities estimates – some Czech historicians claim that no one was murdered during the event and only few people died because of their age or condition (quite cynical, isn’t it), while some German sources claim as much as 8,000 victims of raging Czechs and Soviets, taking a revenge for the World War II.
Wikipedia has a number quoted from publication that seems to cohere with a scientific consensus: About 700 are confirmed as dying, either by disease (shigellosis) or by murder.
The event, called Brno death march or Brünner Todesmarsch, is still a tabu in Czech society. It is rarely mentioned by media, although the situation is getting better thanks to young people interested in this part of history. It still remains to be one of the blackest moments in the history of the town.
I would rather not comment the event any more: I do not approve the concept of the collective guilt but I am not sure what would I have done in 1945 myself. I am glad that I live in an era where the biggest moral question is whether to commute by car or bike.
However: if you or someone in your family have taken a part in this event, please contact me at kasparek@brnonow.com and share your story.
Further resources
- Brno death march at Wikipedia
- Interview with one of the survivors of Brno Death March
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
You really think the biggest moral question of our era is how to commute?!?
Of course there are more problems than that – but at least our current moral questions are not connected to raping, expelling or murdering neighbors, are they?
I’d rather prefer lived in that time than in now days when the biggest moral issue is about using car or bike.
This is my first comment here, great blog and thanks for the amount of info provided.
well done!
Depends on how you define “neighbors.” It’s true that you personally are no longer likely to be faced with the rape, expulsion or murder of any group of people here in Brno. But those things do still happen in many parts of the world besides Brno, and to say that commuting is the biggest moral issue *of your era* sounds a little disingenuous, to be honest. Not to mention that there are still social issues here in Brno that would seem to present bigger moral questions than “to bike or not to bike?”
I know it was supposed to be just a flip comment, not serious social commentary, but to me it seems out of place to downplay modern moral dilemmas in an article meant to bring attention to a moral crime of the past.
Well, that is a good point, Mindy. I’m gonna remember that.
Hi Michal.
I go fro long walks every morning and always greet people I encounter. One such person came from Brno. He is 82, his mother was Jewish and though he hasn’t told me the details yet I know her fate was horrible. My mother was a Volks Deutscher from Verschetz now in Serbia and she spent 3 months in Brno during World War 2 at the Kindergaten Gymnasium. She and her family were wiped out in October 1944 and she spent the next 3 years as an inmate of a Soviet Labour Camp in Stalino. Her father was shot by the Serbs and her mother and sister and her child fled to Austria. She survived, she was lucky. In the meantime her story, like the story you’ve told above is hidden and not remembered. Like you, I believe all horror and atrocity stories ought to be remembered because if we forget the stories are only used to justify the ideology of those people who rule who, unfortunately, history has proved to be none other than the perpetrators of the new atrocity. Thank you for remembering and reminding us that we are all capable of inflicting these sad and horrible things on mostly innocent people.
Hi Michal.
I go for long walks every morning and always greet people I encounter. One such person came from Brno. He is 82, his mother was Jewish and though he hasn’t told me the details yet I know her fate was horrible. My mother was a Volks Deutscher from Verschetz now in Serbia and she spent 3 months in Brno during World War 2 at the Kindergaten Gymnasium. She and her family were wiped out in October 1944 and she spent the next 3 years as an inmate of a Soviet Labour Camp in Stalino. Her father was shot by the Serbs and her mother and sister and her child fled to Austria. My mother survived, she was lucky. In the meantime her story, like the story you’ve told above is hidden and not remembered. Like you, I believe all horror and atrocity stories ought to be remembered because if we forget, the stories are only used to justify the ideology of those people who rule who, unfortunately, history has proved to be none other than the perpetrators of the new atrocity. Thank you for remembering and reminding us that we are all capable of inflicting these sad and horrible things on mostly innocent people.
Dear Dieter, thank you for the moving, raw story.