1945: Death Marches

Death marches were part of the final stage of Nazi crimes and refer to the “evacuation operations” of the SS guards in the final phase of the Second World War. During the course of these death marches, the SS liquidated the concentration camps near the front line as of 1944 and forced the prisoners to march towards the Reich interior or they were evacuated in locked railroad cars. Numerous concentration camp prisoners did not survive the day- and week-long marches or transports: they froze, starved or collapsed in weakness and were then shot by SS guards. Some trains came under fire by Allied troops, others remained unaided on alternative routes. In the final weeks of war, tens of thousands of Hungarian-Jewish forced labourers in Austria were transported to Mauthausen. The Volkssturm (special unit of the German Home Guard) and the Gendarmerie, and sometimes the Hitler Youth and the Armed SS functioned as guards. Stragglers and escapees were shot. In addition to that, there were also several massacres of Hungarian Jews.

External Resources:

http://www.nachkriegsjustiz.at/ns_verbrechen/juden/rechnitz_eh.php