Death Marches (Page 2)
The End
The SS were trying to get the prisoners to camps that were deeper within Poland or even to Germany. Sometimes they made it; thus creating even more extreme crowding conditions and further spreading epidemics such as typhus.
Sometimes the camp the columns were supposed to reach was liberated before they got there; thus the columns had to change directions en route and continue marching.
Sometimes the Allies would overrun the columns.
When the SS guards would sense the closeness of the Allied troops, they would run off in the middle of the night, leaving the prisoners to fend for themselves. Although the prisoners were very glad to be liberated, most were very near death.
Notes
1. Shmuel Krakowski, "Death Marches," Encyclopedia of the Holocaust ed. Israel Gutman (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990) 351.
2. Elie Wiesel, Night (New York: Bantam Books, 1982) 81.
3. Isabella Leitner, Isabella: From Auschwitz to Freedom (New York: Anchor Books, 1994) 69.
4. Wiesel, Night 94-95.
The SS were trying to get the prisoners to camps that were deeper within Poland or even to Germany. Sometimes they made it; thus creating even more extreme crowding conditions and further spreading epidemics such as typhus.
Sometimes the camp the columns were supposed to reach was liberated before they got there; thus the columns had to change directions en route and continue marching.
Sometimes the Allies would overrun the columns.
When the SS guards would sense the closeness of the Allied troops, they would run off in the middle of the night, leaving the prisoners to fend for themselves. Although the prisoners were very glad to be liberated, most were very near death.
Notes
1. Shmuel Krakowski, "Death Marches," Encyclopedia of the Holocaust ed. Israel Gutman (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990) 351.
2. Elie Wiesel, Night (New York: Bantam Books, 1982) 81.
3. Isabella Leitner, Isabella: From Auschwitz to Freedom (New York: Anchor Books, 1994) 69.
4. Wiesel, Night 94-95.