Death marches during the Holocaust
Towards the end of World War II in 1945, Nazi Germany had evacuated an estimated 10 to 15 million people, mostly from East Prussia and occupied Eastern and Central Europe.
Although most of the prisoners were already very weak or ill after enduring the routine violence, overwork, and starvation of concentration camp or prison camp life, they were marched for kilometres in the snow to railway stations, then transported for days without food, water, or shelter in freight carriages originally designed for cattle.
[8] The SS killed large numbers of prisoners by starvation before the marches and shot many more dead both during and after for not being able to keep pace.
Seven hundred prisoners were killed during one ten-day march of 7,000 Jews, including 6,000 women, who were being moved from camps in the Danzig region.
[9] Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor and winner of the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize, describes in his book Night (1960) how he and his father, Shlomo, were forced on a death march from Buna (Auschwitz III) to Gleiwitz.
[12] In early June 1942, Jews concentrated in Belz were driven in a 60-kilometre (37 mi) death march to Hrubieszow.
On January 12, the Soviet army began its Vistula-Oder Offensive, advancing on occupied Poland and reaching near enough such that artillery fire could be heard from the camps.
About 5,000 prisoners from Stutthof subcamps were marched to the Baltic Sea coast, forced into the water, and machine gunned.
[9] In late April 1945, the remaining prisoners were removed from Stutthof by sea, since it was completely encircled by Soviet forces.
Shortly before the German surrender, some prisoners were transferred to Malmö, Sweden, and released into the care of that neutral country.
In April 1945, about 28,000 prisoners were marched from Buchenwald on a journey of over 300 kilometers through Jena, Eisenberg, Bad Köstritz, and Gera[18] with the intended destination of Dachau, Flossenbürg, and Theresienstadt.
[19] On April 24, 1945, the satellite labor camps around Dachau were being cleared out by the Nazis ahead of the advancing Allied troops, and some 15,000 prisoners were first marched to the Dachau camp, only to be sent southwards on a death march towards the Austrian border,[20] the path for which generally headed southwards, partly along the eastern shore of the Starnberger See, taking a left turn to the east in the town of Eurasburg and heading towards the Tegernsee.
They were spotted by advance scouts of the U.S. Army's 522nd Field Artillery Battalion, the only segregated Japanese American-manned military unit in Germany at the time.
They and the other American troops did what they could to save those left alive, for at least two days before dedicated medical personnel could take over.
