The “Death Marches” that Saved Lives

By Angela Schneider

Published: 2012-07-31

In late 1944 with Soviet Forces rapidly advancing on Germany from the east, the German authorities in AMT D in Oranienburg who were responsible for the concentration camps, ordered the camp commandants in the countries east of Germany to gather as many prisoners as were mobile, issue them rations, and evacuate them to camps in Germany.

All available trucks and trains being involved in the German defense against advancing Soviet forces, the SS were forced to march the prisoners west.

The Jewish author Elie Wiesel who was a prisoner in Auschwitz at that time describes how he, on receiving orders to prepare for evacuation, rushed to the Auschwitz camp hospital to make sure his sick father was not left to be liberated by the Russian forces but was taken off on the “death march” with the “murderous SS.” (Strange but true)

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