Finally, the 7,500 who were still barely alive were put aboard the three vessels in the harbor. The lucky ones were jammed aboard the Cap Arcona, a luxurious vessel that had plied the Hamburg to Rio de Janeiro route in the 1920s and 1930s before being converted to a troop transport.
The unlucky ones were herded aboard two small freighters, where they were shut away in total darkness in the cargo holds. They were packed so tightly there was no room to lie down or even to sit. They were held vertical only by the sheer pressure of all the bodies standing around them.
"They had all heard that Adolf Hitler was dead and that the British were advancing and would be in Luebeck any moment," Sven Schiffner, a 31-year-old banker who has become an authority on the Cap Arcona, explained.
"They were all hoping the war would be over before the SS officers could decide what to do with them," he adds. "In hindsight, it is pretty clear that the SS didn't know what to do with them. And then the Allies attacked, and it was every man for himself. And the next day it was all over."
For Schiffner it is not over, and he goes to clubs and public schools to lecture on the Cap Arcona.
"I have to do this," he explains. "Over 7,000 people died. It's only right that their memory be kept alive."
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