as normally he is in German accounts as a monster who heartlessly sent some 9, 600 people to their deaths by sinking the ship, instead being portrayed as both a perpetrator and a victim, providing a degree of moral ambiguity. Notably, the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff is not presented as a complete story of German victimization as the book correctly notes that the three captains commanding the ship were criminally negligent in not having enough lifeboats aboard while the decision to keep the ship's lights on at night, thereby illuminating the ship's profile against the dark sky, has never been explained. Had the Wilhelm Gustloff had the proper number of lifeboats, more lives would have been saved while if the lights had been turned off, the ship might very well had escaped been sunk altogether. The evaluation of the ship was likewise botched with the children aboard the Wilhelm Gustloff mostly going down with the ship while the three captains all managed to find themselves places on the lifeboats, aspects of the sinking that are incorporated into the novel. Preece felt that the most vivid parts of Crabwalk were the "death in the snow" segments tracing the real story of Der Flucht as millions of German civilians trekked westwards in vast panic-stricken columns over the snow and ice in the winter of 1944-45 with many dropping dead on their epic flight. Preece wrote the debate about the assassination of Wilhelm Gustloff in Switzerland which takes up much of the novel was "...really a distraction from the horror in the snow experienced by the refugees in the winter treks to the west, which claimed the lives of so many in such degrading circumstances". The South African novelist J.M Coetzee felt that the character of Tulla was Grass's most memorable character who despite her questionable political views is undeniably a victim as she speaks moving of the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff, saying: "A thing like that you can never forget. It never leaves you. It's not just in my dreams, that cry [of passengers drowning in the Baltic] that spread over the waters...And of them little children among the ice floes". Coetzee stated that Tulla's politics may be "ugly" and "unrefined", but were "deeply felt" as he wrote that Grass made an "considered argument" that people such as Tulla should be allowed "to have their heroes and martyrs and memorials