Death marches (Holocaust)

In December 1939, 2,000 male Jews from Chełm, Poland, were forced on a death march to the nearby town of Hrubieszów; 200–800 died during the march. At Hrubieszów, another 2,000 Jews were rounded up and forced to join the Chełm Jews.[11]

In January 1940, the Germans deported a group of prisoners from the Lipowa 7 prisoner of war camp to Biała Podlaska and then to Parczew. They rushed them on foot among snowstorms and temperatures below −20 °C (−4 °F). Those POWs who did not follow orders were killed by the German guards. The inhabitants of the nearby villages were forced to collect and bury the bodies in mass graves. Only a small group of prisoners survived this march of death. A few were able to escape into the woods and join the partisans.[12]

In early June 1942, Jews concentrated in Belz were driven in a 60-kilometre (37 mi) death march to Hrubieszow. Those who could not continue on the way were shot by the SS guards. All death march survivors were deported along with about 3,000 Jews from Hrubieszow to Sobibor.[13]

Victims of a death march (via train) from Buchenwald to Dachau, 29 April 1945

German civilians, under direction of U.S. medical officers, walk past a group of 30 Jewish women starved to death (Czechoslavkia) 1945

Memorial in Krailling for the death march from Dachau

The largest[5] and the most notorious of the death marches took place in mid-January 1945. 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.[14] By January 17, orders were given to vacate the Auschwitz concentration camp and its subcamps. Between the 17th and 21st, the SS began marching approximately 56,000 prisoners[14] out of the Auschwitz camps, most of them 63 km (39 mi) west to the train depot at Wodzisław Śląski (Loslau),[14] while others marched 55 km (34 mi) northwest to Gliwice (Gleiwitz), with some being marched to other locations.[15] Temperatures of −20 °C (−4 °F) and lower were recorded at the time of these marches.[5] Some residents of Upper Silesia tried to help the marching prisoners. Some of the prisoners themselves managed to escape the death marches to freedom.[5] At least 3,000 prisoners died on the Gleiwitz route alone.[15] Approximately 9,000-15,000 prisoners in total died on death marches out of Auschwitz's camps,[16][14] and those who did survive were then put on freight trains and shipped to other camps deeper in German held territory.

In early 1945, Buchenwald had received numerous prisoners moved from camps further east in territory lost to the Soviets, and camp authorities began to close the outlying camps of Buchenwald (such as those in Apolda and Altenburg) to concentrate prisoners in the main camp. 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 [17] with the intended destination of Dachau, Flossenbürg, and Theresienstadt. The remaining 21,000 prisoners in Buchenwald were liberated by the U.S. Third Army on April 11, 1945.[18]

The evacuation of the about 50,000 prisoners from the Stutthof camp system in northern Poland began in January 1945. About 5,000 prisoners from Stutthof subcamps were marched to the Baltic Sea coast, forced into the water, and machine gunned. The rest of the prisoners were marched in the direction of Lauenburg in eastern Germany. They were cut off by the advancing Soviet forces. The Germans forced the surviving prisoners back to Stutthof. Marching in severe winter conditions and treated brutally by SS guards, thousands died during the march.[9]

In late April 1945, the remaining prisoners were removed from Stutthof by sea, since it was completely encircled by Soviet forces. Again, hundreds of prisoners were forced into the sea and shot. Over 4,000 were sent by small boat to Germany, some to the Neuengamme concentration camp near Hamburg, and some to camps along the Baltic coast. Many drowned along the way. Shortly before the German surrender, some prisoners were transferred to Malmö, Sweden, and released to the care of that neutral country. It has been estimated that over 25,000 prisoners, around half, died during the evacuation from Stutthof and its subcamps. One hundred prisoners were liberated from Stutthof on May 9, 1945.[9]

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,[19] 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.

By the second of May 1945, only some of the 6,000 prisoners sent on the death march were still alive; those in failing health had been shot as they fell. On that day, as the eastwards-marching prisoners had passed through Bad Tölz and were nearing Waakirchen, nearly sixty kilometers (37 miles) south of Dachau, several hundred of the dead and dying were lying on open ground, nearly all covered in freshly fallen snow. 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. Only days earlier, they had liberated the Kaufering IV Hurlach satellite slave labor camp[20] of the Dachau main camp's "system"; many of their own relatives were themselves interned during the war on American soil. They and the American troops did what they could to save those left alive, for at least two days before dedicated medical personnel could take over.[21][22] A memorial to the rescue by the 522nd exists at 47°46′6.15″N 11°38′55.30″E, just under two kilometers west of the Waakirchen town centre.[23]

• Death march memorials
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  Memorial in Wodzisław Śląski of the death march from Auschwitz Birkenau
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  This memorial in Blievenstorf of the death march from Sachsenhausen concentration camp includes a red triangle emblem
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  Memorial in Putlitz of the death march from Sachsenhausen concentration camp
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  Holocaust cemetery in Nawcz for victims of the death march from Stutthof concentration camp
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  Memorial plaque to the victims of the death march in Jena