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Description
On the death march, Mr. Couture tells of his thoughts of being free as he witnessed the conditions improving for him and his fellow prisoners.
Transcription
Interviewer: And a term that I’ve heard is the death march, is this what this was called?
Yeah, that’s what it was, and you know I just made it to Lübeck, that’s where we ended up at the prisoner of war camp on the Baltic. Just made it. I got dysentery and lousy and dirty, and I figured them Germans were going to do away with us. They told us they were going to take you in and clean you up and we didn’t believe it. I thought as soon as I heard this steam running in this big building, a great big building. Went in there to get all our clothes thrown off and a steam bath and cleaned up and gave us clothes that the Red Cross had piled in there just like a new person. And then, well two mornings after, I woke up and there were no guards, nobody around and I thought oh boy maybe they’ll come back and shoot us. I was trying to crawl under a building. I had no friends, nobody. At this time, I didn’t know anybody, just traveling along. All of the sudden there’s a crash and a big British tank broke into our place, compound, and he had loaves of bread he was throwing just like candies. Just tasted good to us, we were starving.