death

DEATH

The circumstances surrounding the death of Walter Suskind are somewhat controversial. He had saved the lives of many and yet nearly none of them knew to whom or what they owed their existence to. Those that could not be saved had boarded the freight trains with a picture of a Jewish man laughing and socializing with their killers etched into their memories. It is unfortunate that such a good and dedicated human being be hated by the Nazis because of his race and be despised by his own people because of the social front he put up.

In the end, when Walter Suskind was surely destined for death along with his family, he had a last minute scheme that could save them all.He had returned from Amsterdam with a forged letter from Nazi headquarters describing how invaluable Suskind had been to accomplishing Nazi missions. He had carried the letter with him on the train to Theresienstadt; when they were about to switch for transport to Birkenau-Auschwitz, Walter breaks from the group and heads toward camp commander, Karl Rahm, with letter in hand. He was perhaps twelve feet away from Rahm when the Jew in charge of loading passengers tackled him. The Jew shouted that Suskind had no authority to speak to Rahm; Suskind struggled; Rahm smiled, impressed by the Jew; Suskind was pushed into the car and the door was locked.

An article in the Boston Globe that came out on October 21, 1990, it is stated that:

"Of the 193 Dutch arriving with Suskind, those immediately selected for gassing included all 17 men older than 50 years, all 54 children younger than 15 years, all 19 mothers accompanying children, and all the 30 women older than 45 years, according to Red Cross records."

Walter Suskind was only 38 years old at the time. What happens to him after he is separated from his family is somewhat sketchy and controversial. One prominent version of the story is that during the death marches conducted by the Nazis as they were trying to clean up their act before the Allies took over, anyone who made it through the march was shot. It is believed that Walter Suskind could have been one such casualty. Another version is that Suskind was killed by other Jews who recognized him from his work in the Dutch Theater during their transport, and seeing him as a traitor they may have chosen to take revenge on him. In any case, Suskind is believed to have died during the winter of 1944.