After the liberation of Auschwitz, it took six weeks before Otto was strong enough to leave the camp. On 5 March 1945, he went to Katowice, a nearby town. There, Rosa de Winter, who had been in the same barracks as Otto's wife Edith, told him that Edith had died.
Otto wrote letters to relatives in Switzerland and England. He wanted to join his relatives in Switzerland, but that was not possible because he had no proof of identity. And so, he had to join other Dutch people who were going home.
On 2 April, Otto left for Odessa in the Soviet Union (today’s Ukraine). Odessa is a city on the Black Sea. He arrived there three weeks later.