The Tragic Tale of the Cap Arcona: A Ship's Dark Legacy

The scenic island of Rügen, north of Germany, is the largest among Germany's islands, part of Mecklenburg. Known for its two famous national parks, it bears the name of the ancient Rugini tribe that settled there over a thousand years ago. At the island's northern end lies the well-known Arkona Bay, offering ideal conditions for anchoring, swimming, and tourism.

In 1927, Germany launched the Cap Arcona in this bay. A tourism vessel weighing 28,000 tons, it was the largest ship at the time voyaging between Germany and South America and was deemed one of the world's most magnificent passenger ships. Its reputation preceded it, with many affluent Germans indulging in months-long tours on it around the globe.

At the outbreak of World War II, Hitler commandeered the massive ship for the Kriegsmarine naval force. It sailed the Baltic Sea, aiding in the defense of Germany's northern borders. Toward the war's end, Hitler utilized it in the infamous Operation Hannibal, evacuating over 25,000 German soldiers and civilians from East Prussia to Western Germany, then under Nazi control.

Months later, the Nazi military crumbled. The Allies were closing in—the Americans and British from the south and west, the Red Army from the east. Hitler's bunker was in its death throes, yet the twisted Nazis clung mercilessly to their starving, tormented Jewish prisoners. Concentration camp inmates were brutally marched into Germany and further into Western Germany to prevent them from falling into Allied hands. Himmler hoped to use them as bargaining chips: their release for the freedom of some Nazi leaders.

At one point, Nazi leaders realized they couldn't maintain and hold these camp prisoners and ordered them to be driven onto the enormous Cap Arcona. First to board were prisoners from the Neuengamme camp, which was part of the Sachsenhausen camp, where inmates were forced to produce bricks for the German army to the point of exhaustion and death. Next were prisoners from the Stutthof and Dora Mittelbau camps—also forced into back-breaking labor manufacturing missiles in underground mines. Having not seen daylight in years, these inmates were now marched hundreds of kilometers to the coast and then onto the Cap Arcona.

The ship was packed with skeletal human beings. No food was provisioned on board. Nazi officials were torn between keeping them as leverage or sinking the vessel to "dispose" of the human cargo without many traces.

On May 3, 1945, three days after Hitler's suicide, Royal Air Force planes bombarded the ship with deadly torpedoes. The ship caught fire and keeled over. SS guards donned life vests and jumped into the sea, preventing prisoners from doing the same. The guards also had rubber boats, using them to escape. The British navy fired on the fleeing guards. German fishing boats rapidly departed from the German coast to save the guards, succeeding in rescuing many of them. The miserable prisoners were condemned to a horrific death. Those among them who managed to jump overboard had no chance. The waters of the Baltic Sea were brutally cold, their physical condition weak, and this was happening miles from shore.

For weeks after the horrifying event, the bodies of prisoners continued to wash ashore. They were buried in a mass grave not far from Cape Arkona, the site where the ship had first launched as a luxury liner. Years later, bodies of victims from this tragedy were still occasionally washing up. The last body washed ashore in 1971, that of an unidentified Jewish prisoner who had suffered for years in a concentration camp before being trapped in the ship's wreckage at the bottom of the Baltic Sea until finally finding eternal rest.

A British investigation concluded that while there was intelligence indicating that thousands of concentration camp survivors were on the ship, it was not relayed to the British pilots in time. They believed they were targeting a Nazi vessel. Apparently, to the British, Jewish lives weren't of significant importance either. May Hashem avenge the blood of the martyrs.