Auschwitz Death March Essay

Death March From Auschwitz

Auschwitz Death Camp

The Holocaust started due to some Germans thinking that Jewish people were inferior to them. These Germans, later named Nazis, decided to kill all Jews, in order to do that they decided to send them to either death or concentration camps, which were spread throughout Germany. There were many camps, one of those camps was called the Auschwitz concentration camp.

Why Start the March?

When Nazis working at the Auschwitz death camp found out that the Soviet Army was on their way to liberate Auschwitz, they gathered all prisoners able to walk and forced them to walk west (Sheehan 39). They called these walks evacuations, but today they are known as death marches.

A Week After Knowing

Although the

The fifteen-thousand who were killed weren’t able to walk due to sickness or injury.

Although their goal was to leave no evidence behind, if they were to kill and burn every body, the Soviet Army would catch up to them.

Reasons to march

The Nazis had three main reasons to instigate the march:

Soviet troops were approaching to liberate the camp.

Nazis wanted to keep the prisoners for slave labor.

Nazis didn’t want any prisoners to escape and tell the troops about what they’ve faced at the camp. (“Death Marches, 1944-1945”)

Negligence on the march

Most prisoners died of either freezing, starving, or being shot. Although there were normally some form of transportation available during the march, the Nazis still forced the prisoners to walk through the harsh winter weather (Downing 40). Prisoners would have to use the thin clothes that they were given when they first arrived at the camp to walk the death march. If anyone fell behind their line, bent down to grab something, speak, or do anything that isn’t walking, they would be shot (Robson 76).

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The Two Destinations

The Auschwitz death march had two main routes, one headed west and the other headed northwest. The group set northwest to Gliwice met with inmates who lived in camps from East Upper Silesia, and the group due west to Wodzislaw met with prisoners from camps south of Auschwitz (“Death March from Auschwitz”).

Gliwice

The group headed northwest to Gliwice started with around three-thousand prisoners, a week later on January 21 there were only fifteen-hundred still alive. When the march ended three months later, only about 280 prisoners were still alive (Sheehan 39).

Wodzislaw

The second group, headed west to Wodzislaw, started marching with around sixty-thousand prisoners, once they got to Wodzislaw they were put onto cramped trains and transported to different camps ("Death Marches”).

What happens next?

Although these two were the first routes away from Auschwitz, they were certainly not the last. The death march continues after prisoners arrive at these destinations. They mostly keep in Germany and just head more north or more west with prisoners from other camps. Although, they are still treated the same way as mentioned; being shot, starved, and