Palmnicken

In January 1945, the SS began to evacuate several camps in East Prussia and about 13,000 prisoners were sent to Königsberg. But even Königsberg was threatened by the Soviet Red Army and during the chaos that followed, the SS managed to gather between 5000 – 7000 polish and hungarian jewish women for another evacuation, this time towards Palmnicken, a coastal town about fifty kilometres northwest of Königsberg. The evacuation was led by SS-Oberscharführer Fritz Weber and was characterized by extreme weather conditions with snowfall and cold. The extreme weather and the guards’ arbitrary killings led to the death of 2000 – 4000 Jews along the way. Therefore, there were only about 3000 Jews alive when they arrived at Palmnicken on January 27. The original plan was to drive the remaining Jews into a mine and drown them by filling it with water. But the owner of the mine did not allow this and instead they were locked into an amber factory. Four days later, on January 31, nevertheless, the SS decided to murder them and the Jews were thrown into groups at the beach where they were shot or pushed into the sea where they either froze to death or drowned. Local Volksturm troops assisted the SS at the massacre.