On 28 April 1945 Smudits was among the inmates sent out by the camp authorities on a so-called Death march towards the camp at Bergen-Belsen to the west. This was a response by the German authorities to the seemingly unstoppable advance from the east of the Soviet forces which were already fighting their way into the suburbs of Berlin. On the first night of the march Käthe and her friend Mizzi Bosch managed to escape, after which they made their way on foot back towards Vienna. Their first experience of Vienna was anything but welcoming, however, when the two of them were thrown off a tram by the conductor because they had no money for a ticket. Mizzi Bosch died a year later as a result of the torture she had suffered in the camp.