Stutthof was a Nazi concentration camp and death camp complex located 22 miles east of Danzig in Poland. This camp was established in September 1939, first as a concentration camp for non-Jews and then as a labor camp and transit camp for the Jews of northern Poland. At the beginning of 1944, the Stutthof complex was enlarged, and an extermination facility and seventy-four satellite labor camps were attached to it. Bert and his father were two of the estimated 115,000 prisoners who passed through Stutthof. In 1945, the surviving prisoners were evacuated westward in a series of death marches, or, like Bert, sent away by sea in small boats and barges.
