Auschwitz Evacuated

Karl · Post by **Karl** » 12 Jun 2004 13:51

 January 18, 1945
About 60,000 prisoners at Aushwitz are forced to embark on the infamous ‘Death March’ heading West.

 January 27, 1945
Auschwitz liberated by the Soviet Army. About 7,000 prisoners are found to be still inside.

Why were the 60,000 marched off?
Why were there still 7,000 left inside?

Karl · Post by **Karl** » 13 Jun 2004 16:56

Uninteresting?

Or, it's been covered and the answer was/is obvious.

David Thompson · Post by **David Thompson** » 13 Jun 2004 17:13

Karl -- There's no problem with the question you asked, but expecting an answer within 27 hours is unrealistic. Sometimes reader inquiries get nearly instant results, but not often. 2-3 days is a more realistic time-frame. If I can get to it, I'll try to look up an answer to your question sometime today.

Karl · Post by **Karl** » 13 Jun 2004 17:36

Sorry David.

Mantra update: must-exercise-more-patience (especially in the Holocaust & 20th Century War Crimes section)…must-exercise-more-patience (esp...)…

Sergey Romanov · Post by **Sergey Romanov** » 13 Jun 2004 18:11

Karl, this is not the answer to your question, but a related topic nevertheless.

Holocaust deniers often claim that the fact that thousands of Jewish Auschwitz prisoners chose to leave with Nazis rather than stay in the camp and wait for Soviets proves that they did not think of Nazis as murderers. Usually they quote Elie Wisiel's memoir "Night":

http://fpberg.yourforum.org/archive/15.html

"The choice was in our hands. For once we could decide our fate for ourselves. We could both stay in the hospital, where I could, thanks to my doctor, get him [the father] entered as a patient or nurse. Or else we could follow the others. 'Well, what shall we do, father?' He was silent. 'Let's be evacuated with the others,' I told him."

However, deniers choose not to quote the places in the book which show some historical context of what was going on (quote courtesy of Phil Mathews):

Two days after my operation, there was a rumor going around the camp that the front had suddenly drawn nearer. The Red Army, they said, was advancing on Buna; it was only a matter of hours now.

We were already accustomed to rumors of this kind. It was not the first time a false prophet had foretold to us peace-on-earth, negotiations-with-the-Red-Cross-for-our-release, or other false rumors... And often we believed them. It was an injection of morphine.

But this time these prophecies seemed more solid. During these last few nights, we had heard the guns in the distance.

My neighbor, the faceless one, said:

"Don't let yourself be fooled with illusions. Hitler has made it very clear that he will annihilate all the Jews before the clock strikes twelve, before they can hear the last stroke."

I bust out:

"What does it matter to you? Do we have to regard Hitler as aprophet?"

His glazed, faded eyes looked at me. At last he said in a weary voice:

"I've got more faith in Hitler than in anyone else. He's the only one who's kept his promises, to the Jewish people."

At four o'clock on the afternoon of the same day, as usual the bell summoned all the heads of the blocks to go and report.

They came back shattered. They could only just open their lips enough to say the word: evacuation. The camp was to be emptied, and we were to be sent farther back. Where to? To somewhere right in the depths of Germany, to other camps; there was no shortage of them.

"When?"
"Tomorrow evening."
"Perhaps the Russians will arrive first."
"Perhaps."
We knew perfectly well that they would not.

The camp had become a hive. People ran about, shouting at one another. In all the blocks, preparations for the journey were going on. I had forgotten about my bad foot. A doctor came into the room and announced:

"Tomorrow, immediately after nightfall, the camp will set out. Block after block. Patients will stay in the infirmary. They will not be evacuated."

This news made us think. Were the SS going to leave hundreds of prisoners to strut about in the hospital blocks, waiting for their liberators? Were they going to let the Jews hear the twelfth stroke sound? Obviously not.

"All the invalids will be summarily killed," said the faceless one. "And sent to the crematory in a final batch."

"The camp is certain to be mined," said another. "The moment the evacuation's over, it'll blow up."

As for me I was not thinking about death, but I did not want to be separated from my father. We had already suffered so much, borne so much together; this was not the time to be separated.

I ran outside to look for him. The snow was thick, and the windows of the blocks were veiled with frost. One shoe in my hand, because it would not go onto my right foot, I ran on, feeling neither pain nor cold.

"What shall we do?"
My father did not answer.
"What shall we do, father?"

He was lost in thought. The choice was in our hands. For once we could decide our fate for ourselves. We could both stay in the hospital, where I could, thanks to my doctor, get him entered as a patient or a nurse. Or else we could follow the others.

"Well, what shall we do, father?"
He was silent.
"Let's be evacuated with the others," I said to him.
He did not answer. He looked at my foot.
"Do you think you can walk?"
"Yes, I think so."
"Let's hope that we shan't regret it, Eliezer."

I learned after the war the fate of those who had stayed behind in the hospital. They were quite simply liberated by the Russians two days after the evacuation.

Elie Wiesel, "Night", Bantam Books, 1982, pp. 76-78

Hope this helps somewhat.

David Thompson · Post by **David Thompson** » 13 Jun 2004 21:02

Karl -- You asked:

Why were the 60,000 marched off?

If there was a written order or other official explanation stating the reason for the evacuation, I haven't seen it. Without any official stated reasons, we can only guess why the 60,000 prisoners were marched off.

You also asked:

Why were there still 7,000 left inside?

Since we don't have the evacuation order, we don't know what its terms were, or what explanation may have been made.

At pp. 781-805 of Danuta Czech's book Auschwitz Chronicles, I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltd., London: 1990, there is a detailed chronology of the evacuation. Here is a very short version of the facts which pertain to your questions:

The evacuation appears to have been very disorderly. It started with a Red Army advance on Cracow that caught the Germans by surprise. At noon on 17 Jan 1945 Gouvernor-General Dr. jur. Hans Frank, the head of the Nazi occupation government of Poland, held a meeting in Cracow in which he declared that the city had been German since the earliest times and surrender was unthinkable. Two hours later Dr. Frank, his retinue and a convoy of loot left Cracow for Silesia.

As Dr. Frank's flight became known, the Germans in the area started to panic. In the early afternoon of 17 Jan, KL Auschwitz commandant Richard Baer personally chose the leaders of the evacuation columns, and told the SS guards to kill stragglers and anyone attempting to escape. The evacuations from satellite camps began as early as 4 PM on 17 Jan.

During the night of 17-18 Jan 1945, camp administrators burned a number of records. At Monowitz, the Germans told the prisoner-doctors to carefully examine the health conditions of the sick and to remove the names of all those able to march from the hospital records. The prisoner-doctors were told that only the seriously ill could remain behind, under the supervision of doctors who were themselves ill and unable to march.

On 20 Jan 1945 SS-Obergruppenfűhrer und General der Waffen-SS und Polizei Ernst Heinrich Schmauser, Senior SS and Police Commander “Southeast” (HSSPF “Suedost”) at Breslau, ordered SS-Sturmbannfuehrer Franz Xaver Kraus to kill all prisoners who were unable to march. Certainly, the SS did kill some of the prisoners remaining at the camps. By that point, however, most of the guard personnel had already left, and there were reports of SS men looting civilian clothes from the depot at the "Canada" facility to wear under their uniforms. As the SS guards fled, armed bands of Organization Todt members, local self-defense units, and Waffen-SS detachments remained in the area. For the most part these German forces appear to have been concerned with defending the area against the Red Army than with executing prisoners.

Sergey Romanov · Post by **Sergey Romanov** » 13 Jun 2004 21:39

Auschwitz Museum site assumes that there were orders:

With the Red Army offensive approaching in the second half of 1944, the SS administration began gradually evacuating Auschwitz concentration camp prisoners to camps in the depths of the Reich. The orders for the final evacuation and liquidation of the camp were issued in mid-January 1945.

No concrete info, however. I think that the folks at the site are usually helpful and may respond to the questions, so we may try e-maling them (though the site seems to be down at this time).

Sergey Romanov · Post by **Sergey Romanov** » 13 Jun 2004 21:40

There is also a book by Andrzej Strzelecki:

The Evacuation, Dismantling and Liberation of KL Auschwitz

General information:

Covering the last half year of the camp's existence, the author attempts to show the degree to which the general political-military situation of the Third Reich and the associated economic conditions influenced the last days of the Auschwitz concentration camp. He presents the evacuation and liquidation of the camps, the transports and Death Marches, and the work of the Soviet Commission for the Investigation of Fascist German Crimes.

Andrzej Strzelecki also offers a broad description and documentation of the work of the Polish Red Cross hospital on the site of the former camp.
The book contains numerous accounts by prisoners of their experiences during the last days of the camp and after liberation, and also by physicians and nurses who saved the lives of sick prisoners.

Publisher: Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum 2001
Translated into English by Witold Zbirohowski-Koscia
238 pp., illustrations, documents, indices, 14.5 x 20.5 cm
ISBN: 83-85047-27-1

Sergey Romanov · Post by **Sergey Romanov** » 13 Jun 2004 21:45

http://www.ushmm.org/outreach/dmarch.htm

Near the end of the war, when Germany's military force was collapsing, the Allied armies closed in on the Nazi concentration camps.
The Soviets approached from the east, and the British, French, and Americans from the west. The Germans began frantically to move the prisoners out of the camps near the front and take them to be used as forced laborers in camps inside Germany. Prisoners were first taken by train and then by foot on "death marches," as they became known.
Prisoners were forced to march long distances in bitter cold, with little or no food, water, or rest. Those who could not keep up were shot.

Sergey Romanov · Post by **Sergey Romanov** » 13 Jun 2004 21:52

This page, while it is from deniers' site, might be of interest:

http://www.codoh.com/incon/inconevac.sht

Sergey Romanov · Post by **Sergey Romanov** » 13 Jun 2004 21:56

Some interesting info (not necessarily about Auschwitz) is contained in this article:

Eleonore Lappin, "The Death Marches of Hungarian Jews Through Austria in the Spring of 1945"

http://www.yad-vashem.org.il/download/a ... n_full.pdf

Sergey Romanov · Post by **Sergey Romanov** » 13 Jun 2004 22:01

January 18, 1945, Bacon was evacuated west by forced march from Auschwitz-Birkenau to Blechhammer, a 36-hour journey. As he later described it: "Many attempted to hide to await liberation by the Russians, others were discovered and shot."

http://lastexpression.northwestern.edu/ ... n_top.html

xcalibur · Post by **xcalibur** » 13 Jun 2004 22:11

Here are the last roll call (Jan. 17, 1945) figures for prisoners in the Auschwitz complex of camps:

http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/Holocaust/austats.html

Sergey Romanov · Post by **Sergey Romanov** » 13 Jun 2004 22:21

According to Hilberg in "Anatomy of the Auschwitz death camp" the last roll call revealed 67012 names. His source is Czech's entry for January 17, 1945.

xcalibur · Post by **xcalibur** » 13 Jun 2004 22:40

Sergey Romanov wrote:According to Hilberg in "Anatomy of the Auschwitz death camp" the last roll call revealed 67012 names. His source is Czech's entry for January 17, 1945.

Sergey, I've just seen another set of numbers (72,000) on another website