Purpose Of Death Marches

The Nazis scream on the death marches at the Jewy: “Faster, you tramps, you flea-ridden dogs!” which forces them to run faster to the next concentration camp (Wiesel 85). They don't have the ability to decide where they want to go or if they want to make a break, because the Nazi soldiers threaten them with death. In the graphic novel Maus by Spiegelman Vladek explains that “International laws protected us a little as Polish war prisoners. But a Jew of the Reich, anyone could kill in the streets” which is a very interesting because prisoners committed a crime or killed people, but Jews didn't do anything like that, they just wanted to live in peace, but the prisoners had more rights and more ways to decide about their life than Jews due to international laws. Basic rights were also taken away by the Germans - The Jews weren't even allowed “…to

Those who were murdered upon arrival at Auschwitz were for the most part composed of the elderly, ill, women, and children. Most of these people were rounded up from over crowded Jewish ghettos through out Europe. The Lodz, Warsaw, and Krakow ghettos alone held roughly 700,000 thousand Jews. Every day deportations to concentration camps and other ghettos, and random murders took place. Major food shortages emerged within the ghettos alongside epidemics, and people were dropping dead of hunger and disease in the streets. SS Sturmbanfuhrer Hoppner proposed a more humane way of exterminating Jews, rather than letting them starve to death he had gas vans in mind. The vans were tested north of the Lodz ghetto in Chelmno, and they had proved to be an effective and humane way of extermination. These mobile killing units are estimated to have killed 150,000 Jews.

January 24, 1945, the SS officers were taking all prisoners of Auschwitz on death marches so that they would all die quicker. Many who would go on these marches would not survive because they would run for miles without rest.

Next, in Death March Articles, SS guards and officers were the aggressors who showed indifference. These Death Marches forced prisoners to walk long distances in bad conditions and no adequate food. According to Death March Articles, “SS guards brutally mistreated these prisoners and killed many” (Death Marches 2). The act that the SS officers forced the captives to perform during the Holocaust is horrifying. Many fail to see how these marches could bring joy to anyone.

The Nazis weren’t the only people who treated Jews like inferior beings; anybody who has the power can treat anything lower than themselves. “…a present whose abnormality suddenly becomes routine.”(Langer 6). The gypsy considered himself as the superior of the group so he could strike anybody he wants (Wiesel 39). When the gypsy’s life becomes too important for him, he has adopted to the way of the Nazis. As the Allied forces advanced, the Nazis led death marches as their last resort because they had concerns about their own lives. “...life becomes too much for man and death assuming the throne in the human imagination” (Langer 6). S.S made Jews run for hundreds of miles nonstop (Wiesel 85). They, the SS, were frightened that their cruel ways dug up, decided they had to bury the evidence which explained that they could not believe what the inhumane actions they engaged in with other people. People had the potential to manipulate other people in mass numbers but the second they think for themselves, they will find out what is right and what is not.

The Germans in charge of coming up with a sufficient means of transportation had a heavy sense of superiority in that their prisoners were lower than animals. They had only tried to maintain the cheapest, most efficient method of transit of the Jews to their concentration camp. The deportees who survived were left with a scarring imprint of this trip, as it was the first branch of their torture, for most, the rest of their lives. After two interviews with two different survivors, it is inferred that the same approach was used for all the prisoners being transported to their destination of their demise. The people who were forced to endure this dehumanizing means of transit underwent a complete stripping of humanity that foreshadowed their ultimate

Forced to march on and on with no feeling and dwindling hope, the victims of the Nazi concentration camps suffered from exhaustion and starvation as they walked through the unbearable winter. The Nazi party executed these evacuations, but the real question lies on why they did it. Not wanting the victims to interact with enemy countries, demanding them to maintain their weaponry and equipment, and holding the victims as hostages in attempt to establish peace, the Nazi party primarily conducted these death marches to protect and maintain their reputation as a political party. Explained in the article, “Death Marches in the Holocaust”, by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, “SS authorities did not want prisoners to fall into enemy hands alive to tell their stories to Allied and Soviet liberators.”(2). If the prisoners encountered the rescuers from the west, they certainly would have exposed all the tortuous and horrendous actions the Nazis have inflicted on them. The SS did not want these stories to be leaked because they knew that if other people were to find out, the destruction of their party would have been a primary goal across the world. Furthermore, evacuating the prisoners seemed like the safest option for the Nazi party to have very little damage in their reputation, especially when they would bomb the concentration camps to hide their tracks. However, this was not the only reason they demanded these marches. Using the victims to continue the supply of

They left them to starve with little food, to work in all terrible,deplorable, uncouth conditions all for them to feel and to be treated like vile animals. Prisoners even acted like animals fighting for food,water and clothing - anything to get them to live one more day. A lack of compassion for others can not change what they saw in the concentration camp ”bela katz- son of a big tradesman from our town-had arrived at Birkenau with the first transport, a week before us. When heard of our arrival, he managed to get word to us that, having been chosen for his strength, he had himself put his father’s own body into the crematoria oven “ (Wiesel 33) Having to put his own father into his own death bed is a harrowing experience and not being able to protest at the fear of his own death is an irrefutable memory that will never be forgotten. The nazis and their unvarnished mistreatment,ciless hostility that showed no compassion for the prisoners “ then came the march past the victims two men were no longer alive .their tongues were hanging out swollen and bluish . but the third rope was still moving; the child too light was still breathing ….. And so he remained for more than half an hour lingering between life and death,writhing before our eyes.and we were forced to look at him at close range he was still alive when i passed him .his tongue was still red, his eyes not yet extinguished”(Wiesel 65) . death

During the Holocaust, when Jews were taking masse to concentration camps, the sole focus within the camps was the utility of members. Healthy Jews were to be used routinely for labor. Sickly ones were far more likely to be executed on the spot. Jews were hanged in the center of the camp and left there for days. Others including their family members and lifelong friends would be forced to walk past their bodies again and again. During this tragic time many

Marches were dreadfully common in World War II. All people incarcerated in concentration camps were ordered to be evacuated toward the inner part of Germany according to Heinrich Himmler. There were three main reasons for this. The first reason was that the SS would not allow the enemies to get to the prisoners alive to tell their stories. The SS also thought the prisoners were necessary to maintain production of military supplies. The final reason was that some SS leaders believed camp prisoners could be used as hostages to bargain. Marches started on trains and ships but as time ran out and the Allied troops pressed on, many marches were on foot. If prisoners could not walk anymore, guards obeyed their orders to immediately kill them. The prisoners were murderously mistreated and thousands died of starvation, exposure, and exhaustion. Liesel notes in The Book Thief how “hunger ate them as they continued forward” (Zusak 3920. Some

Death marches began as a way to evacuate the concentration camps. The Germans knew they would soon be defeated, so they attempted to erase their actions. Death marches were an easy way to transport the Jews, as well as kill them off. So they forced Jews on long forced marches to escape the Soviet, British, and United States forces. The three main reasons for evacuations were “authorities did not want prisoners to fall into enemy hands alive to tell their

Death Marches are forced marches of prisoners for a long distance with bad conditions. Throughout the Holocaust, death marches were used quite frequently. Nazi’s thought they were one of the easiest and most efficient ways to kill off all of the Jews and other prisoners. Thousands and thousands of prisoners sent on Death Marches died during the Holocaust. The purpose of these death marches was to kill the Jews so there would be no evidence of what the Nazi’s did. The conditions they endured were horrible, and they died because of starvation, exhaustion, and dehydration. Less than 50% of all prisoners sent of death marches survived.

They made the prisoners walk in what was called “Death marches”. In Death marches around 60,000 Jews had to walk and keep walking like in a parade and the Nazis would stand at random spots in the camps and free shoot at all the prisoners. “Those who fell behind or were too slow or sick were shot, even women holding children” (Wood 456). It was an estimated number of around 100,000 Jews died on these death marches alone. At the end of World War 2, millions had died while in the concentration camps. Auschwitz alone was responsible for 1.5 million to 3 million deaths. On January 27, 1945, the Nazi Concentration Camp, Auschwitz, was liberated by the Soviets. This was a miracle to everybody. But between the years or 1933 and 1945 more than 10 million men, ladies and kids were dead. Once liberated, the United States of America troopers were afraid and afraid by what they saw and practiced. Any captive that was left behind alive were only too so much gone or to sick, discouraged, or disoriented to even understand that they'd been

The Holocaust nearly made the Jewish population and religion disappear from the face of the Earth. From January 30, 1933 to May 8, 1945; Adolf Hitler, German politician and leader of the Nazi party, ran the Holocaust all over Germany and Eastern Europe. Prisoners and victims of the Holocaust include: the majority of the Jewish population, German Communists, Socialists, Social Democrats, Roma (Gypsies), Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, and people accused of socially deviant or socially unacceptable behavior. They were sent to many different areas that had different purposes. The most used places they were sent to are called concentration camps. Once they entered the concentration camps, there was no escaping; those people officially became prisoners. There were 23 main concentration camps and around 900 sub camps. Concentration camps tricked the Jewish people into coming into them by offering them a better life on the welcoming signs outside. Some of the main camps had many different inhumane uses. All of the camps are notorious for their cruel and evil ways of everything that they did to prisoners, such as the genocide the Holocaust caused (Concentration Camps, Killing Methods, Jewish Population).

The prisoners mainly traveled on foot but most of them die from starvation and exestuation. The prisoners would be marched on foot part of the way, and then crowded onto trains, where they were given food and water. There is an estimate of 100,000 Jews that have died while on the death marches. The prisoners that the Nazis thought were unfit for slave labor in Germany was not taken on the death marches. The death marches lasted up to weeks, sometimes even months. During the time, thousands dies from starvation, diseases, and the cold. Some of them were shot along the way and some was recused by the neutral diplomats.