by Birgit Keller, NDR Nordmagazin
The Schwanenstein in front of Lohme:In the winter of 1956, dramatic scenes took place on the rock.Anyone who hikes along the shore path from Lohme to the chalk cliffs on Rügen today cannot miss it. The Schwanenstein protrudes from the Baltic Sea just a few meters from the shore. On February 13, 1956, this stone was to be the fatality of three boys from the children's home in Lohme.
The children's home right up the slope
At that time, about 110 girls and boys were housed in the children's home just above the cliff. Many were orphans or had no family to stay with. Like Manfred Prewitz from Strausberg near Berlin, who only had his father, Uwe Wassilowsky, who hoped so much that his mother would bring him and his two sisters to Hamburg, and Helmut Petersen from Warnemünde, who after the death of his mother with his Nurse Jutta came to the home in Lohme.
13. February 1956:Island has been snowed in for days
On February 13, 1956, the island of Rügen had been snowed in for days, foam and drift ice had formed on the Baltic Sea, and the sea had piled up ice dunes on the shore. Despite the cold, the boys from the children's home wanted to go down to the shore. The Schwanenstein, covered with a thick layer of snow and ice, rose up. An ice bridge had formed. The three boys ran over.
Storm is coming
When playing on the ice, the boys apparently did not notice that the wind was picking up. Storm came up, it snowed heavily. The sea rumbled against the ice dunes and suddenly the ice bridge broke away. The way back to the shore was cut off.
The desperate fight for the lives of the children
The Schwanenstein looked something like this in 1956. Due to the cold winter on Rügen, the rock is covered with ice and snow.Other home children on the shore informed the children's home. The fishermen in the village were called together, ladders and poles brought. A dinghy was to be used for rescue. But it was storming and sheets of ice were drifting in the waves. Before the dinghy could get to the stone, it was completely covered with ice. "Hurry up!" cried the children from the stone, so a contemporary witness remembers.
"At least save the little one!"
The border brigade coast was alerted. Soviet soldiers stationed in Ranzow were there. Some of the men roped up to swim to the children on the rock. "Get the little one! At least save the little one!" shouted those present on the shore. But this attempt at rescue also failed. A helicopter from Berlin could not get up because of the storm. A cutter from the fish combine in Sassnitz had to turn back at sea - through the ice on the The ship had become top-heavy in the bow and it was now dark.
The children on the Schwanenstein hadn't heard a sound for a long time. It was clear to the rescuers on the shore that the three boys had long since frozen to death. Everyone went home in silence.
The next morning
The next morning the sea was calm, a layer of ice had formed again towards the Schwanenstein. And so the men with ax and pickaxe went to rescue the children from the ice on Schwanenstein.
Today, a plaque on the Lohme shore path near the Schwanenstein commemorates the accident in 1956. On the initiative of the Lohme children's home, there has been a gravestone for the three boys in the ice in the Nipmerow cemetery since 1995. Uwe Wassilowsky was 14, Manfred Prewitz 13 and Helmut Petersen just 10 years old.