Holocaust survivors Herta Goldman and Lea Frank Holitz describe the death marches. The video is an excerpt from the film "Death Marches" in the Holocaust
History Museum in Yad Vashem. |
Key DatesJANUARY 18, 1945
DEATH MARCHES FROM THE AUSCHWITZ CAMP SYSTEM BEGIN The SS begins evacuating Auschwitz and its satellite camps. Nearly 60,000 prisoners are forced on death marches from the Auschwitz camp system. Thousands are killed in the days before the death march. Tens of thousands of prisoners, mostly Jews, are forced to march to the city of Wodzislaw in the western part of Upper Silesia. SS guards shoot anyone who falls behind or cannot continue. More than 15,000 die during the death marches from Auschwitz. In Wodzislaw, the prisoners are put on unheated freight trains and deported to concentration camps in Germany, particularly to Flossenbuerg, Sachsenhausen, Gross-Rosen, Buchenwald, Dachau, and Mauthausen. On January 27, 1945, the Soviet army enters Auschwitz and liberates the few remaining prisoners. JANUARY 25, 1945 THE EVACUATION AND DEATH MARCH FROM STUTTHOF CONCENTRATION CAMP The evacuation of nearly 50,000 prisoners, the overwhelming majority of them Jews, begins from the Stutthof camp system in northern Poland. About 5,000 prisoners from Stutthof subcamps are marched to the Baltic Sea coast, forced into the water, and machine gunned. Other prisoners are put on a death march to Lauenburg in eastern Germany, where they are cut off by advancing Soviet forces. The Germans force the prisoners back to Stutthof. Marching in severe winter conditions and treated brutally by SS guards, thousands die during the death march. In late April 1945, the remaining prisoners are removed from Stutthof by sea, since Stutthof is completely encircled by Soviet forces. Again, hundreds of prisoners are forced into the sea and shot. Over 25,000 prisoners, one out of two, die during the evacuation from Stutthof. Soviet forces enter Stutthof on May 9, 1945. APRIL 7, 1945 DEATH MARCH FROM BUCHENWALD CONCENTRATION CAMP As American forces approach, the Nazis begin a mass evacuation of prisoners from the Buchenwald concentration camp and its subcamps. Almost 30,000 prisoners are forced on death marches away from the advancing American forces. About a third of these prisoners die during the marches. On April 11, 1945, the surviving prisoners take control of the camp, shortly before American forces enter on the same day. APRIL 26, 1945 DEATH MARCH FROM DACHAU CONCENTRATION CAMP Just three days before the liberation of the Dachau camp, the SS forces about 7,000 prisoners on a death march from Dachau south to Tegernsee. During the six-day death march, anyone who cannot keep up or continue is shot. Many others die of exposure, hunger, or exhaustion. American forces liberate the Dachau concentration camp on April 29, 1945. In early May 1945, American troops liberate the surviving prisoners from the death march to Tegernsee *courtesy of ushmm.org |