preview

Purpose Of Death Marches

Decent Essays

Death Marches
The definition of death marches is, “Forced marches of prisoners over long distances and under intolerable conditions was another way victims of the Third Reich were killed. The prisoners, guarded heavily, were treated brutally and many died from mistreatment or were shot. Prisoners were transferred from one ghetto or concentration camp to another ghetto or concentration camp or to a death camp” (A Teacher's Guide To The Holocaust). Even though Hitler sent people on Death Marches to kill them off in a torturous way, Death Marches were one of the methods to kill of witnesses of the crimes the Nazis committed. Some people had to walk on the death marches and they had to walk for miles and miles. Also, sometimes these people had to walk to trains and had to ride in trains with many people squeezed together on a long horrible ride to killing centers.
Walking Conditions People that were walking on Death Marches had …show more content…

One reason that there were death marches was that authorities did not want the Jews to fall into the enemy's hands and be able to tell them what had happened to them. Also the SS authorities believed that they needed slave workers wherever they went to maintain production of armaments. Some leaders of the camps thought that they could use the prisoners as hostages and use them as a peace offering in the west (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum).
Walking to your death is a hard thing to do especially in the conditions that they had to go through. They walked through snow, burning heat and were tortured by the SS guards. People need to know about this so that nothing like this ever happens again. Hitler killed off people that witnessed their crimes. They did not want them to survive so they sent them onto the marches so they would not get in trouble. Most had to walk on these marches but others had to ride on

Get Access