In January 1945, the Third Reich stood on the verge of military defeat. As Allied forces approached Nazi camps, the SS organized death marches of concentration camp inmates, in part to keep large numbers of concentration camp prisoners from falling into Allied hands.
Major death marches and evacuations, 1944-1945
In January 1945, the Third Reich stood on the verge of military defeat. As Allied forces approached Nazi camps, the SS organized death marches of concentration camp inmates, in part to keep large numbers of concentration camp prisoners from falling into Allied hands. The term "death march" was probably coined by concentration camp prisoners. It referred to forced marches of concentration camp prisoners over long distances under heavy guard and extremely harsh conditions. During death marches, SS guards brutally mistreated the prisoners and killed many. The largest death marches were launched from Auschwitz and Stutthof.
Item ViewFritzie Weiss Fritzshall describes the death march from Auschwitz
Fritzie's father immigrated to the United States, but by the time he could bring his family over, war had begun and Fritzie's mother feared attacks on transatlantic shipping. Fritzie, her mother, and two brothers were eventually sent to Auschwitz. Her mother and brothers died. Fritzie survived by pretending to be older than her age and thus a stronger worker. On a death march from Auschwitz, Fritzie ran into a forest, where she was later liberated.
Item ViewLilly Appelbaum Malnik describes death march from Auschwitz to Bergen-Belsen
Germany invaded Belgium in May 1940. After the Germans seized her mother, sister, and brother, Lilly went into hiding. With the help of friends and family, Lilly hid her Jewish identity for two years. But, in 1944, Lilly was denounced by some Belgians and deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau via the Mechelen camp. After a death march from Auschwitz, Lilly was liberated at Bergen-Belsen by British forces.
Item ViewSteven Springfield describes 1945 death march from Burggraben in the Stutthof camp system
The Germans occupied Riga in 1941, and confined the Jews to a ghetto. In late 1941, at least 25,000 Jews from the ghetto were massacred at the Rumbula forest. Steven and his brother were sent to a small ghetto for able-bodied men. In 1943 Steven was deported to the Kaiserwald camp and sent to a nearby work camp. In 1944 he was transferred to Stutthof and forced to work in a shipbuilding firm. In 1945, Steven and his brother survived a death march and were liberated by Soviet forces.
Item ViewThomas Buergenthal
In 1933, just after Hitler and the Nazi Party came to power, Thomas's Jewish parents moved from Germany to Czechoslovakia. Thomas's father had worked as a banker in Germany, and then bought a small hotel in the Slovakian town of Lubochna. Many of his father's friends in Germany came to Czechoslovakia to escape the Nazi government's unfair policies and stayed at the hotel.
1933-39: Slovak soldiers who had sided with Hitler took over the Buergenthal family's hotel in late 1938. They fled to Zilina, a nearby city, and lived there until after Thomas turned 5. Then, his father took the family across the border into Poland. On September 1, 1939, they boarded a train heading for a boat that would take them to England. But the German army invaded Poland that day, and their train was bombed. They joined other refugees, and walked north to Kielce.
1940-45: In Kielce the Buergenthals were put into a ghetto and then a labor camp. In 1944 Thomas was deported to Auschwitz with his parents. It was now January 1945, and the advancing Soviet army forced the Germans to evacuate. Thomas and his family were marched out—children at the front. Day one was a 10-hour march and tiring; they began to lag. Stragglers were shot, so Thomas and two boys devised a way to rest as they walked: They'd run to the front of the column, then walk slowly or stop until the rear of the column reached them. Then, they'd run ahead again.
Thomas was one of only three children to survive the three-day death march. He was deported to Sachsenhausen, where he was liberated by Soviet troops in April 1945.
Item ViewPinchas Gerszonowicz
Pinchas was born into a large family living in the town of Miechow in south central Poland. His father was a machinist and locksmith. Pinchas spent long days studying, either learning Hebrew in the Jewish school or taking general subjects at the public school. He belonged to the Zionist youth organization, Ha Shomer ha-Tsa'ir, and played left wing for a Jewish soccer team.
1933-39: At 13 Pinchas finished school and started work as an apprentice machinist and blacksmith in a building contractor's shop. When the German army invaded Poland in 1939, his parents decided that Pinchas and his older brother, Herschel, should flee to the Soviet-occupied part of Poland. They were on foot and no match for the motorized German division that overtook them about 150 miles east of Miechow. There was nothing else to do but return home.
1940-44: Pinchas repaired vehicles for the Germans in Miechow and later, at their Krakow airbase. In July 1943 he was deported to Krakow's suburb of Plaszow, where the Nazis had established a labor camp over a very old Jewish cemetery. There, he worked as a machinist and blacksmith with his father. Every day he saw Jews being shot by the SS guards or torn to death by dogs. The camp's commander, Goeth, always had two large dogs with him. All he had to say was, "Get somebody!" Pinchas never knew if his last minute was approaching.
Pinchas was deported to Auschwitz in early 1945. One of the few survivors of a two-week death march, he was liberated near the Dachau camp in April. He immigrated to the United States in 1948.
Item ViewLilly Appelbaum Malnik
Lilly's Jewish parents separated before she was born. Her mother, who had moved to Brussels to operate a small workshop that made raincoats, was unable to raise her three children alone. Lilly, the youngest child, stayed in Antwerp and was raised by her grandparents in an apartment in a Jewish neighborhood near the heart of Antwerp's diamond district.
1933-39: Lilly's grandfather was a shoemaker and worked out of their apartment. Customers came to their house to have their feet measured. Because they were poor, Lilly had to go to public school instead of the private Jewish school. When her grandmother died in 1939, Lilly went to Brussels to live with her mother. After school, she helped her to assemble raincoats at the workshop. Germany attacked in the west on May 10, 1940. On Friday, May 17, 1940, the German army entered Brussels.
1940-44: Deported to Auschwitz in 1944, Lilly felt lucky to work in a camp kitchen. A transport of starving Hungarian-Jewish women and children arrived--they were to be killed the next day, so weren't fed that night. Lilly decided to sneak potatoes into their barracks. As she passed the food out in the dark, a commotion began. Suddenly, lights blazed. The barracks leader stormed in. "I could denounce you! You could be shot!" she screamed at Lilly. Then she added quietly, "Go back to your barracks." Next day, the Hungarians were gassed.
Lilly survived a forced march to the Bergen-Belsen camp, where she was liberated on April 15, 1945. She returned to Brussels before immigrating to the United States in 1946.
Item ViewGerman civilians from Nammering dig graves for victims of a death march
German civilians from the town of Nammering, under orders of American military authorities, dig graves for victims of a death march from the Buchenwald concentration camp. Germany, May 1945.
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