On 16 April 1945, the transport ship Goya left the Hela Peninsula for Swinemünde carrying around 7,000 refugees, most of them women, children and wounded people.
The windowless cargo holds had been covered with straw so that as many refugees as possible could be accommodated. Thousands more crowded the narrow passageways, together with wounded soldiers.
In the Gulf of Danzig, the Goya was struck by two torpedoes fired by a Soviet submarine.
The ship sank within only a few minutes.
Only 147 people survived. More than 6,800 died in the ice-cold waters of the Baltic Sea according to the figures cited here.
The commander of the Soviet submarine was later honoured as a Hero of the Soviet Union.