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The last days of Auschwitz, which was opened by the Nazis in Oswiecim, Poland, in 1940, were marked by chaos, cowardice and an attempt to destroy what was once one of Nazi Germanyâs most efficient tools in the quest to eradicate European Jews. By late 1944, as the Allied forces of World War II wrested much of occupied Europe out of Nazi hands, it had become clear that the Nazi militaryâonce a mighty force that had invaded and occupied most of Europe after Hitlerâs rise to power in 1933âwas headed toward a spectacular defeat.
As the government and military began to collapse within Germany, Nazi officials in both Germany and occupied Poland began to think about their endgame. In November 1944, Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS and one of the architects of the Holocaust, issued an abrupt order to destroy the gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest of Auschwitzâs three main camps. Historians disagree on why he issued the command, which was in direct opposition to a previous order by Adolf Hitler to destroy the remaining Jews in Europe.
Then, the marches began. The remaining prisoners deemed healthy enough to march were told to assemble into columns and leave Auschwitz. About 7,000 were left behind as 60,000 marched. Nazi guards led them through the forests and fields of southern Poland on their way to Germany. The Germans called the march an âevacuationâ; prisoners immediately dubbed it the âdeath march.â
The trek was brutal. Those who couldnât keep up were shot or beaten by frustrated guards, and the cold, starvation and disease exacted a terrible toll on prisoners. âAnyone who dared even to bend overâwho stopped even for a momentâwas shot,â recalled Iba Mann, who was 19 at the time.
The Nazisâ goal wasnât only to destroy evidence of the camp: They had plans to force the prisoners to serve as slave laborers for the Reich. Some prisoners were stuffed into train cars to complete their journey to Germany; others escaped into the sub-zero temperatures. Of those forced to walk, some died along the way, though it remains unclear how many were killed over the course of the marches.
The only people left behind in the camp were people deemed unfit for laborâthose who were too ill or weak. An SS order came down to murder any prisoners who were left, and the SS killed about 700 prisoners in response. However, order at the camp was breaking down. SS officers began escaping themselves, and the strict hierarchy that had kept prisoners in line disappeared. Those officers who stayed burned documents in a last-ditch attempt to hide their crimes. Meanwhile, the prisoners who remained huddled in hospital beds and bunks and waited. A few others escaped as the remaining guards fled.
Then, on January 27, 1945, the Red Army reached the camp. Inside, they found prisoners covered in excrement and starving to death, children who had been used for medical experiments, and other shocking evidence of the Nazisâ crimes. At Birkenau, the guards had failed to destroy some of the storerooms where prisonersâ stolen belongings were stored before being transported back to the Reich. Among the remaining items were 7.7 tons of human hair, 370,000 menâs suits and 837,000 womenâs coats and dresses.
Only 7,000 prisoners remained at the camp upon liberation, and the Red Army immediately began to help feed and care for them. Half of the surviving prisoners died of starvation, disease and exhaustion shortly after liberation; the others slowly recovered and began their lives as displaced persons.
Though the Russians had just come across the Holocaustâs deadliest camp, the liberation of Auschwitz didnât even make front page news. A communiquĂŠ published in the New York Times on January 28, 1945, doesnât even mention the camp, just the city; on February 3, the paper devoted two paragraphs to the âmurder factoryâ at Oswiecim but gave few details. As World War II raced to its end, few people could even grasp the horror that was found in the camps.
Only after the true scope of the Holocaustâs horrors were known did the world begin to react to what had happened at Auschwitz. Though the Nazis fled and tried to cover up their deeds, making it impossible to ever know the complete history of their crimes, the voices of the victims and survivors live on through their testimony.
All in all, 6 million Jews perished in the Holocaust. Today, a museum and memorial at Auschwitz preserves the remnants of the Nazisâ crimesâa reminder of the many who were killed and a testament to those who survived.
