great writing. thank you. [applause] >> is there a nonfiction author or book you would like to see featured on booktv? send us an e-mail at the [email protected]. or tweet us at twitter.com/booktv. >> cathryn prince recounts the sinking of a former cruise ship turned escape vessel in world war ii. the wilhelm gustloff was transporting close to 10,000 german children, women, elderly and wounded soldiers in the baltic sea on january 30, 1945. the author writes the ship was torpedoed by a soviet submarine causing the deaths of over 9000 people. this is about 50 minutes. >> good afternoon, and it's a real honor and privilege to be speaking with you here today. several years ago, my father told me about a german ship sunk at the end of world war ii. he didn't know much about it, other than its name, and that it was incredibly devastating. and so i decided to look that up. and what i discovered, it was, in fact, the worst maritime disaster in peace or war. more than 9000 people died on january 30, 1945, when a soviet submarine attacked the wilhelm gustloff, which was a former cruise liner turned escape ship. so to put that into context, that's about six times more than those who died when the titanic sank after hitting an iceberg. during the initial research into this incident, i found a few people outside of the military took note of the sinking in the immediate aftermath. and as the years went on it would gain mentioned in certain histories of world war ii, but there've been nothing was explained in depth. and so because of that, little is known about the wilhelm gustloff. and initially i could find no information and no explanation, why did so little exist. that actually piqued my curiosity even further. i wanted to know more about the sinking and i wanted to know more about the people who were aboard the wilhelm gustloff that night because to me the story of the wilhelm gustloff is not only the story of a ship sinking, it is the story of how people came to the aboard this ship. it's about what it was like to come of age in the part of nazi germany that until the early 1940s had remained in some ways isolated from what was happening closer to berlin. the first survivor that i found was a man who grew up in prussia and today he lives about three hours north of toronto. he was a 10 year old boy at the time of the sinking. so i traveled to canada to meet him. the sinking naturally still haunts him. he thinks about it every day. though the loss of life was massive, and as desperate as the conditions were that forced him to flee, stories like is have remained largely unknown. and i spent a few days with him, but after, i'm after the very first hour of meeting him at a store and the start of the other survivors needed to be told. and so this book is the story of what i found. it's the result of interviews with survivors and time spent in the archives including the national archives in washington, d.c. i was fortunate enough to spend time at the u.s. holocaust memorial museum as well as obtain records from the federal archives in germany. in early 1945, the end of the war in europe was in sight. the americans and british were closing in from the west and the soviets were closing in on berlin from east. many civilians and some soldiers chose to abandon these volatile areas of europe by any possible. especially for those civilians living in east prussia at the time. they knew exactly what awaited them when the soviets were approaching. they knew that the same acts of barbarism, the same massacres would happen to them as had happened to the russians as the german army had advanced in its invasion of the soviet union in 1942. however, they were under orders, they were not permitted to leave until the very end of january 1945. the nazi government forbade anyone to leave or to do so would've shown signs of defeatism, and acknowledgment that they were going to lose the war. well, finally hitler agreed and gave the apple permissiopermissio n to start evacuating these civilians. that's operation hannibal was born which did ultimately save about 2 million civilians. so at this point the refugees are starting to amass on harbors all along the baltic sea, and it is part of poland. so in the final days of january, january 27, 28th, 29th, these refugees are trying to get aboard the ship. and the wilhelm gustloff is one of them. nearly 10,000 german refugees and wounded soldiers attempt to escape across the baltic sea, about a 12 hour trip. as you know they met a tragic end. sometime before daybreak at january 30, 3 torpedoes from a soviet submarine struck the boat causing at a stop the damage and throwing passengers into the frozen waters of the baltic sea. it was about 12 nautical miles off the banks which lies off the coast of present-day poland. those aboard the train for include primary women and children, elderly and some income but also included members of the german navy and also wounded soldiers aboard the gustloff. because history is defined by much of what becomes part of the official record is what is left unrecorded, if you know the story. in this case, german censorship, soviet suppression and western indifference inspires to bury the gustloff story. refusing to let the flaming third reich heard o of the fee, hitler prohibited officials from reporting the sinking. the soviet union suppressed the story partly because it doubted the integrity of the very submarines who fired on the gustloff. and also to talk about the gustloff might've passed light on their own atrocities. in the west, the events remained very do, first because of -- and was overshadowed by the cold war. so for nearly seven years the story has been relatively hidden as the victims -- 70 years, little sympathy as to their role and the country's role in world war ii. these maps are of world war ii, perhaps more than any other war in recent history it still portrayed in stark lines of black and white. last winter i was on a family trip and we stopped at gettysburg, and being a reporter i was drawn to the newspaper coverage of the battle. and they came across one quote that really resonated with me because of what had been dropping -- working on, because of the gustloff. the quote was every name is a late stroke to some part, and falls a long black shadow upon some parts done. and the recent this quote resonated with me because the story of the gustloff have been quiet for so long. and as i mentioned, it's victims felt, number one, unable to talk about it because of war guilt, and number two in the west, there was definitely in the immediate years little sympathy for those civilians of this part of the world. but to me every name the board the gustloff that perished was a lightning stroke to some hard, and the story of the gustloff with all its drama not only resurrects history but raises provocative questions about loss, survival, and that those impacted continue on year after year and decade after decade. so now i would like to turn your attention to some slides that will tell you the story of the gustloff and some of those survivors that i was fortunate enough to interview. >> so the wilhelm gustloff was launched on may 5, 1937, just one day before the german passenger airship hindenburg crashed and burned at the naval air station in lakehurst new jersey. the gustloff was a 25,484-ton ship and do a 684 feet long. it was the pride and joy of germany's fleet. by way of comparison again, the titanic was actually much larger at 46,000 tons and 882 feet long. well, the hindenburg as you know, fire and was destroyed after it failed to dock, and there were 97 people aboard the hindenburg, and 36 died. when the soviet submarine torpedoed the gustloff, more than 9000 died and both ships were launched with great fanfare. both struck very different chord in our collective memories. the airship also coming from the same government does not carry the weight of nazi germany, the same way the gustloff does. and for good reason. the gustloff was built expressly to symbolize the strength and power of the third reich. it was named for wilhelm gustloff who was the assassinated leader of switzerland trying to party, and wilhelm gustloff was also a close personal friend of adolf hitler. when hitler decided after gustloff was assassinated in 1936 that he could use this assassination for political purposes, for propaganda, and so he decided that one of the ships in his fleet would be named for gustloff, but it would also be the biggest. piggy would also be the best. until than most people in germany did not know the name of wilhelm gustloff, if this was a way to rally the people. it's all difficult to make out at the bottom of this slide, but what looks a little sort of like fuzzy little tops are really the heads of hundreds of thousands of people who had massed to see this ship be launched from the shipyard and held berg -- in helm of berg. this is the menu for its maiden voyage. so initially they kgf program was a way to deliver japanese -- to the people. and acadia program started in the mid 1930s but it was a large scale social program. it was part of the german labor front, and it was after they abolish trade unions. so all the people who took cruises aboard the gustloff were members of the german labor front, and mind you this is not a -- you're forced to join and you're forced to pay dues. but in return they kdf offered at sporting events, operas, harvest festivals, it celebrated hitler's birthday so is a very political organization. and the cruise liners were lost. that was part of because until the most germans had never traveled outside of their own country. it was just something really for the wealthy. it was not something a favorable the most. -- it was not something available to most. so along the coast of africa, scandinavia it would go up around norway in the mediterranean, and here it's just off the coast of portugal, and you can see the people walking in the street in costume. and i've been told by one gentleman whose mother remembers him she grew up in norway, insured member of the gustloff coming up in those early years, and people were very upset because one, what it represented but also, too, they said the germans aboard would spend no money in these towns. they came off and looked around and then were back on their boats. but the idea behind this, there was no first or third class. the idea on board as online at the time was -- or one people, one empire, one leader. so the gustloff became a very effective propaganda tool. it was used also come a facility of a a rescue of english crew after a very creates bring storm. interestingly a paper in australia, they were so impressed. in 1938, the gustloff sales and it is used as a -- [inaudible]. so they took a german citizens living in london at the time to come to the gustloff to be will to see the and even before during dinner, the menu essentially told people you will vote yes. it was very clear how they were to vote. well, by 1939 the gustloff is no longer a cruise ship. in september, after september 1 after the start of world war ii, the government quickly decided it's going to become a hospital ship for the sick and wounded. and so it becomes, it's dock, it's tethered and docked in the shipyard and will not leave the shipyard until 1945. at that point a wide band was painted across its hull and there are red cross symbols painted on the deck and stack as well. but by 1940, it's decided that the gustloff will serve as an accommodation ship for u-boat training. and so what you're seeing in this slide our officers eating aboard the gustloff, during its time as the accommodation ship. it's a floating dormitory in some sense. the sailors are learning survival skills in the swimming pools, and it stays in that capacity until 1945, until the start of operation hannibal. so this photo is a photo of a street in east prussia which, of course, is today stalingrad russia. the furniture store, one of the women that i was able to meet and interview for the book and she had this photo of her family's furniture showroom and factory. well, just three weeks after hollywood showed the "wizard of oz," world war ii begins on september 1, 1939. on the 10th, chairman ground forces are marching in from the west and the russians are coming in from the east. and east prussia, most of them come from that area, remain somewhat isolated. and it wasn't until a little bit later in the early '40s that nazi policies truly going to affect. and at that point the nazis requisitioned they take whatever they want. the factory is no exception. help to explain to me, they turned into a uniform factory and her family was no longer able to come in and out at will. they had asked for permission so their home and factory. they forbade anyone to leave. they toyed with the idea of leaving but they knew their neighbor across the street had been executed for trying to leave so they would not be allowed to leave. and how do we tell the story housing is that they were russian pows being forced to work in the factory, and her father was able to get all of it of a garden in the backyard, not visible. and some chickens and rabbits, and he would make two soups every day. you're supposed to make just a very watery version for those pows, and, of course, a better, more nourishing soup for any of the officers, nazi officers. they were stationed there but he would try to sneak in a little bit of meat into the soup, a little bit of vegetables into that soup. esso helga just remembers just about once a week, every 10 days or so her father was being brought down to the police station for this display of resistance. so her parents were obviously very worried about what was going to happen. here's a picture of helga. she's on the left in the polkadot swimsuit, and her older sister, india, on the right. they are pictured on one of their summer vacations on the baltic sea. it was something note forward to it every year as did thousands of these prussians. for them the baltic sea was so, most people place to go. what's amazing at these photographs is that helga still has them. she told the story of how when it was finally allowed for she and inga to leave, inga was the older sister and held had asked her father to be in charge of money in the identification papers, and her father said, that will be inga's job, a little older, a little more responsible than you. esso helga thought, she wanted somsomething from home so she tk some photographs in her back pocket from her father's cautious but it had a pocket with a button to secure. and amazingly these photographs survived the sinking and survived the years afterwards. she was nice enough to provide me copies of these. and this here as a model of the gustloff. the gustloff could comfortably transport just about 1500 persons altogether, so that would be passengers and a full complement, full crew. these are in the days when it cruises along the mediterranean and scandinavia. and as you can see the lifeboats, there were 22 lifeboats on the gustloff. each lifeboat was designed to hold 70 people. so as i mentioned before, there were upwards of 10,000 people on the day that it sank. they were crammed into every space a manageable. into the closets, underneath the stairwells. there are a tax on the gustloff, and most of the refugees below the promenade deck, which was glass enclosed were trapped there after the torpedoes struck. i did not, well, yeah, there were clearly not enough lifeboats and it is clear they were not enough lifevest and it was certainly not enough lifevest that were large enough for the numbers of children aboard. but the fact is the gustloff sank and just left -- in less than 90 minutes. even if there were more lifeboats, it was not like the titanic that took a long time to sink. it was a very difficult for people that were able to even make their way to a lifeboat. those who did make their way to a lifeboat, that was also no guarantee of survival because it in one of the coldest winters on record. so many of these lifeboat just snapped and plummeted right into the sea. they capsized. someone found only half a hull, then those who tried to swim and get into a lifeboat, new, some of them were beaten back by people already in the lifeboats that were crowded. so the scene as you can imagine was chaotic to say the least. is helga today. helga was in las vegas -- lives in las vegas and. helga was one of the survivors i was able to get into lifeboat. although she actually, it was close is either going to get tossed or maybe she would go down in the water and she was able to get in a lifeboat. there were some boats in the area that night that heard the distress call. they were able to get a distress call out that night, and the admiral, they picked up most of the survivals -- survivors but there was no organized operation. those who survived like helga were taken to an island in the baltic sea. the island was itself another strength through joy project. it was very that hitler and robert latta, the head of the labor can come in vision is very massive hotel, and would have no luxury accommodation versus sort of just what we see as economy today. there were cost overruns and was never completed, however, the german red cross was set up there to help the survivors initially. they were essentially processed and sent on their way. helga's story takes another turn in the remarkable in that she finally gets on the train to start heading towards the west. the idea was that these refugees wanted to end up in allied hands. they were hoping to make to the british or the american lines. she was on a train during the dresden firebombing, but she does eventually make it to california where she finally arrived in about 1948. and here is an actual official boarding pass for the gustloff. most people aboard the gustloff of course didn't have any official documentation. those were handed out in a very first days of the boarding when it was still somewhat orderly, and that would've been around again the 27th and 28th of january, 1945. after that the situation just comes out of control and people are just pushing their way onto the ship. so because of that most people at them and, of course, many of them are destroyed in the sinking itself. this one was not, and it's dated and download, but you still have that. and so now we're going to go to latvia. this family had a bakery in latvia. you can see the press goal hanging from the corner. irene and her sister are two other survivors that is able to get to know. they grew up in latvia, and in 1939 because of the nonaggression treaty, it was decided they were discord. anyone with any german ancestry at that point was deported from the baltic states and they were known as the baltic germans and their sent to east prussia primarily to colonize this region that has now been rid of jewish people of polish people, of other slavic people. but the girls, you know, identified very much with the russian heritage, their mother was russian, and they spoke no english. and so it was very confusing for them. in the beginning when he arrived in east prussia and they are told that they have to learn german, they have to join the hitler youth, and all of this is very confusing to the two of them. and they are just two of the hundreds of thousands of people placed in these early years of world war ii. so this is irene and ellen today. they live in tecumseh, ontario. they're holding a coke book with them. and the reason for this is that this is one of their treasured recipes that came with them later after the war when the able to reunite with their father. a cookbook that he took with him. because after the war ended and food was scarce, and they were fortunate enough to make it to the american lines, and until these first care packages start arriving they can remember just being so hungry. and so