Rebekah Bollman

Ms. Schmidt

Honors English 9

February 27, 2018

An Annotated Bibliography: Nazi Death Marches

Berenbaum, Michael. “Encyclopedia Judaica.” Death Marches, The Gale Group, 2008,

www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/death-marches.

The name death march came from the prisoners of the concentration camps of the

Holocaust. Prisoners were evacuated west to hide the SS officers’ crimes and to avoid

eyewitnesses as the Soviet army and Allied forces closed in. The goal was to hide the

prisoners in Germany, the very place where many were forced to leave. Prisoners left in

the dead of winter, forced to march in horrifying conditions. Whether they were being

marched towards a new camp or towards death was a mystery to many.

66,000 prisoners were marched from Auschwitz to Wodzislaw on January 18, 1945. They

were sent to the Gross-Rosen, Buchenwald, Dachau, and Mauthausen concentration

camps, just days before Auschwitz was liberated by the Soviet army. On January 20,

7,000 Jews were marched to Stutthof’s camp in Danzig, where 700 died in the journey

and the rest were shot in the water when they reached the shores of the Baltic Sea,

leaving only 13 survivors. Death marches had been used before, such as when Soviet
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POWs had been marched through Ukraine and Belorussia to different camps, often to

death. Romanians followed German example and marched the Jews in the region to

Transnistria, where thousands died along the way.

There were 59 marches from Nazi concentration camps that covered hundreds of miles

and lead to either a destination or death. Many died from starvation, cold, and exhaustion

due to marching in the dead of winter and being given little provisions. The bodies of

those who were too slow or too weak were left on the side of the road. When those with a

destination reached a new concentration camp, the camp was unable to hold them due to

the sheer number of prisoners. Sometimes, only one in every ten prisoners survived.

History.com Staff. “The Holocaust.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 2009,

www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/the-holocaust.

Jews and others that the Nazis viewed as less, such as gypsies and the disabled, were

beginning to be sent to Nazi death camps or concentration camps in the early 1940’s. The

prisoners were deported to camps all throughout Germany as well as some countries that

they were allied with. The camps were able to kill as many as 12,000 people a day.

Though Germany tried to keep the camps and killings a secret, word eventually came out

from eyewitness accounts. As Germany began to lose the war, they began to evacuate

their large camps.

The German powers began to fall apart on the inside, as high-ranking officers sought to

distance themselves from Hitler and take power. Before declaring a surrender on May 8,
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1945, Germany began evacuating its camps. These evacuations took place in the forms of

death marches that continued up to and past the German surrender. These marches were

able to kill between 250,000 to 375,000 prisoners. These marches were made so that the

German SS troops could move their prisoners away from the advancing Soviet liberation

army.

From first-hand accounts, it is said that the prisoners were little more than ghosts while

on those marches. They were only aware of survival until the next day, but ultimately

didn’t care if they died. The Germans degraded the Jews and others to less than human

beings. When the war ended, the Jews and other prisoners were found to be displaced and

refugees. The United Nations decided to create a new homeland for the Jewish in the new

state of Israel and the Germans began to accept responsibility for their crimes and repay

the prisoners.

Unites States Holocaust Memorial Mueseum. “Death Marches.” Holocaust Encyclopedia, United

States Holocaust Memorial Mueseum,

www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005162.

After Germany was defeated by a Soviet 1944 summer offensive in the eastern part of

Belarus, SS chief Heinrich Himmler ordered that the prisoners in all Nazi concentration

camps and subcamps to be evacuated to the center of where the Reich held power.

Though not every camp was evacuated, due to the small amount of time, the Nazis has

three major reasons for moving the prisoners. First, the Nazis and SS didn’t want the
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prisoners to tell their enemies of what was done to them. Second, the Nazis thought that

they needed the prisoners to continue with the making of war arms and weapons. Finally,

some SS believed that they could use the prisoners as hostages to ransom for peace that

would ensure the Nazi regime survived in the west.

The evacuations started in the summer of 1944. Most were carried out by train or, in few

cases, by ship. The SS began evacuations on foot in the winter as Allied forces took

control of the German borders and air force. The Allies were ready to attack Germany by

January 1945. Germany was on the edge of defeat after Warsaw, Poland and Budapest,

Hungary were captured, along with a failed surprise attack of the German Ardennes

offensive in December 1944.

SS were ordered to kill those who could no longer walk or who dragged behind. As many

more prisoners died of exhaustion, starvation, or exposure, the other prisoners came up

with the term death march, as the main goal of the Nazis was to kill the remaining

prisoners. Many camps that were evacuated included Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Stutthof,

Gross-Rosen, and Dachau. Prisoners were even being evacuated to the last days of the

war on boat, however they were killed as the British bombed the ships thinking they were

military personnel. Finally, the Allied troops liberated thousands of concentration camp

prisoners from marches and the German forces surrendered and May 8, 1945 was

declared Victory in Europe Day (V-E Day).

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Webb, Chris, and Carmello Lisciotto. “The Auschwitz - Birkenau and Sub-Camps Evacuation

and the Death Marches - January 1945.” The Death Marches from Auschwitz-Birkenau!

Http://Www.HolocaustResearchProject.org, H.E.A.R.T., 2009,

www.holocaustresearchproject.org/othercamps/auschdeathmarch.html.

As prisoners fell in for their last roll call it was recorded that there were over 31,800

prisoners in the main concentration camps. When ruthless leaders were chosen to carry

out the death march evacuations, they were told to kill anyone who was lagging or

attempted to escape. Prisoners are given no protection from the cold and few food rations

that could have to last for more than 18 days, and then are forced into open cattle cars for

transportation to sub-camps like Birkenau. Then they march in horrible conditions, such

as freezing cold and heavy snow. Those who could not continue were shot on spot.

Through a first-hand account, it was discovered that thousands of prisoners were

murdered on those last days of the death marches, moments before liberation. In

Gleiwitz, a selection was held where the sick and unable were singled out, taken behind

the barracks, and shot. Another march began, and the prisoners slept in old barns and

dilapidated buildings, leaving behind the corpses of the dead. When those in Gleiwitz

reached their destination, they were loaded into open freight cars. The men are taken to

Sachsenhausen and the women are taken to Ravensbruck, where many were able to

escape.

A different set of prisoners are evacuated to Buchenwald concentration camp where 300

out of the 450 survive. Auschwitz sends out its last large transport of 2,500 prisoners at
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1:00 am on January 19, 1945. The dead who could not keep up were pushed to the side of

the road on the way to Wodzislaw. Many other camps do the same process all throughout

Nazi Germany. Most do not make their destination, and those who do are only able to

through the hope of liberation.

Wiesel, Elie, and Marion Wiesel. Night. Hill and Wang, a Division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux,

2017.

When Elie Wiesel and his father heard the news that the Soviet army was close and

would liberate them, Wiesel was injured in the infirmary. Making a quick decision,

Wiesel decided to join his father in the evacuation. The prisoners in Wiesel's block

covered themselves with whatever clothes they could find and were given meager rations.

Elie Wiesel, who could not find a shoe to fit his inflamed, injured foot, wrapped it in

extra scraps of cloth he found. Then the time came for Block 57 to march through the

cold, icy, unforgiving winter.

Wiesel and the other prisoners marched forward like automatons. Zalman, a fellow

prisoner with Wiesel who worked in the same block as him, found it unbearable to

continue and was trampled by the hoard of others. The only thing that kept Wiesel going

was his father. When they finally stopped at an abandoned village, Wiesel learned that

the son of Rabbi Eliahu, another prisoner, has left his father alone and marched without

him. As the Rabbi continued to search for his lost son, Wiesel learned that he would

never want to become like the Rabbi's son and abandon his father.
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When they were resting, Wiesel and his father wouldn't let the other fall asleep. For sleep

was the enemy and meant death. When they marched again, the road seemed endless.

Even the SS officers were getting tired, for they let the prisoners march as the wished and

no longer killed them for disorganization or slowness. Finally, Elie Wiesel, his father,

and the surviving prisoners stood before the gates of Gleiwitz.