THE END OF NAZI GERMANY
At the turn of 1944 and 1945, the Nazi armed forces were already collapsing and Nazi troops were forced to retreat on all fronts. The monstrous machinery of the “Final Solution” ran until the last moment, even as the existence of the vast empire of Nazi concentration camps was nearing its end. The Nazis tried to cover up the traces of their crimes. As early as 1943, documents about the mass murders as part of Operation Reinhard in Treblinka, Sobibor, Belzec and Majdanek were destroyed. In the fall of 1944, on Himmler’s orders, traces of the murders in Auschwitz were destroyed and the gas chambers there were blown up. On January 27, 1945, Auschwitz was liberated by the Soviet Red Army.
Photographs of child prisoners after the liberation of Auschwitz
Archive: Belarusian State Archives of Documentary and Photography, courtesy of USHMM.
THE DEATH MARCHES
The saddest act at the end of the war were the so-called death marches from the concentration camps, which were gradually closed and “evacuated” before the advance of the Allied troops. The Nazis did not want to allow the prisoners in the concentration camps to be freed by the advancing Allied troops. The death marches took place from January 1945 until the last days of the German Reich in May 1945. The prisoners had to travel long distances to the target camps under inhumane conditions, in the cold, without appropriate clothing and without food. A large number of them were murdered by SS guards along the way. Some of them were also “evacuated” by train – in overcrowded wagons, without water or food.
CONCENTRATION / KZ CAMPS
The most terrible chapter in the history of Nazi Germany was undoubtedly the concentration camps. From the beginning of their rule in Germany, starting in 1933, the Nazis deported all their political opponents and anyone who opposed their regime to these camps.
Since 1935, when the “non-Aryan” population of Germany was racially and biologically inferior (according to the Nuremberg Laws), Jews and Roma/Sinti were sent to concentration camps.
After the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, the number of concentration (work) camps and their branches grew rapidly. Hundreds of thousands of citizens of occupied countries died here from exhaustion, starvation or torture (sometimes pseudomedical experiments were carried out on prisoners). From 1941 it was necessary to increase the number of camps for prisoners of war.
Unsuspecting Jews go to the gas chambers near the crematories, May 27, 1944. The photo documents the arrival of Jews from another ghetto to Birkenau
EXTERMINATION CAMPS
Several camps set up by the National Socialists during the Second World War are referred to as extermination camps, which were primarily used for the mass extermination of Jews, Roma and other social groups. According to the German plan “Generalplan Ost”, members of Slavic nations who were considered inferior to the Nazis and were liquidated in the extermination camps. Jews and Roma from occupied countries were initially deported to concentration and transit camps – ghettos. The ghettos were “transfer stations” on the way to the final destinations – the “death camps” – the extermination camps. These camps were intended to make the mass murder of the Jewish population (Holocaust) more effective.
Approximate number of those murdered in extermination camps.
(Source: Yad Vashem)
Auschwitz-Birkenau 1 400 000
Kulmhof 320 000
Belzec 435 000
Sobibor 250 000
Treblinka 870 000
Majdanek 360 000
Maly Trostinez 65 000
The Nazis established a system of 23 central concentration camps in Germany with over 1,000 branches.
An estimated 5,800,000 prisoners passed through all concentration camps. Of these, 4,779,000 died and only 1,021,000 survived.
CONCENTRATION KZ/CAMP BUCHENWALD
The Nazi concentration camp in Thuringia, about 8 km from Weimar, was built on July 15, 1937.
The base camp also included 136 secondary work detachments and internment camps (Dora, Kassel, Braunschweig, Tröglitz… etc.).
Above the gate to the camp, the inscription “Right or Unright – My Fatherland” was placed on the outside of the gate and the inscription “To each his own” was faked in the grill from the inside.
SS-Obersturmbannführer Karl-Otto Koch (from August 1, 1937 to July 1941) and SS-Standartenführer Hermann Pister (from 1942 to April 11, 1945) served in the camp’s leadership. The wife of the first of them, Ilse Kochová, the head guard who had the entire women’s section of the camp under her control, was famous for her cruelty and brutality, which is why she was nicknamed the “Buchenwald Beast” or “Witch of Buchenwald”.
By 1945, around 240,000 prisoners passed through the camp, around 56,545 of them were murdered here. 7,783 Czechs were imprisoned here, of whom 818 were martyred.
Buchenwald was liberated on April 11, 1945 by American troops (ARCENT, the so-called Third Army, 89th Infantry).
Häftlinge in Buchenwald nach der Befreiung 1945 (commons.wikimedia.org)
PASSAGE OF THE DEATH MARCH THROUGH THE KOMOTAU REGION
On april 7, 1945, ss-oberscharführer Schmidt, the transport commander, ordered a walk to the Theresienstadt concentration camp, 80 km away, and advised the accompanying ss men: “the fewer vermin you bring to theresienstadt, the better.”
The exhausted prisoners, completely starved and barely able to walk, had to embark on a painful journey. Anyone who could not go further due to weakness, who could not keep up with the pace of the march, who came too late, who was out of shape, who stopped, was mercilessly shot by the accompanying ss guards or beaten with the butt of their rifles. Dozens of bodies lined the march.
The dead were left on the street to die. The mayors of the surrounding villages were ordered to bury these dead on site or in jewish cemeteries.
On the way through the former district from Jilmová to Nezabylice alone, 318 death march prisoners were murdered and are buried in 27 graves.
From april 17th to 18th, 1945, around midnight, a transport drove through the streets of Chomutov/Komotau. He spent the night on the site of the former glass factory and set off on his next trip to theresienstadt the next day. In the morning, trucks brought dozens of beaten and shot prisoners from the city streets to the cemetery so that local residents would not be disturbed by their sight. On the way through the town of Chomutov/Komotau, 111 prisoners from the march were murdered and are buried in the right part of the local cemetery along with 25 prisoners from a passing train transport. In the left part of the cemetery, in the back, there is a mass grave of 27 prisoners of war (British, French, Belgian) and 65 forced laborers of the empire – Russians, Ukrainians, Poles, French and Italians who died here chomutov during the war years.
A total of 228 prisoners, prisoners of war and forced laborers are buried here.
The number of prisoners of war of all nationalities who passed through the Sudeten region in the spring of 1945 varies in the literature between 50,000 and 90,000.
The total number of victims of the death marches is estimated at 250,000.
GRAVES OF THE DEATH MARCH 17-APRIL 18, 1945
SEBASTIANBERG According to the statement of the gravedigger Wilhelm Grüss from Sebastianberg, 14 mass graves with 95 dead were found in the city area.
ULMBACH (JILMOVÁ) A grave with 5 bodies and a grave with 3 bodies were found near the village.
NEUDORF B. SEBASTIANBERG Based on the statement of Karel Berballek from Nová Ves near Hora Sv. Šebestián, No. 50, it was found that there are two mass graves in the Nová Ves cadastre, the first with 8, the second with 7 corpses.
KŘIMOV/KRIMMA František Knaff, senior teacher from Křimov, No. 40, stated that in the land register of the village of Křimov there is a mass grave with 26 bodies behind the mill by the forest.
DOMINA Josef Görg from Domina, No. 36, stated that there is a grave with 1 body near the village of Domina.
SCHÖNLINDE/KRÁSNÁ LÍPA The former mayor of Krásná Lípa, Josef John, stated that there is a grave with two bodies near the village.
OBERDORF / HORNI VES/CHOMUTOV II. In the third part of the cemetery, two mass graves were discovered and opened, one with 82 and the other with 29 corpses. The exhumation took place on September 18th/20th, 1945.
NEZABYLICE On April 13, 1946, the victims of the death march were exhumed from the mass grave at the edge of the forest near the village. 34 bodies were found. Probably 17 Germans, 2 Czechs, 1 Jew (Baumstein), 2 Ukrainians, 6 Poles, the rest cannot be identified.
Most of them (23) were found to have a skull fracture, seven were found to have a gunshot wound to the back of the head, and four died of asphyxiation.
EIDLITZ/ÚDLICE On April 12, 1946, the victims of the death march were exhumed from the mass grave in the Jewish cemetery. 23 bodies were found. Twenty were found to have a skull fracture and three were found to have a gunshot wound to the back of the head.
Map of the Death March with marked graves.
TODESMARSCH IM ERZGEBIRGE
Letter from the released political prisoner Josef Seger from Prague, addressed to the Regional National Committee in Prague on August 22, 1945:
I am one of the five Czech prisoners who survived this march. I consider it my duty to tell you the following:
We belonged to the BUCHENWALD concentration camp. When the Allied troops came within about 10 km of our work camp on April 12th, we were alerted at night and packed into open railway wagons without food and told that we were going to the Flossenbürg concentration camp. The entire labor camp, with a total of 2,350 people, including the sick and dead (about 20 comrades died that night), was transported. After traveling by train for several days, we arrived at Gottlobland train station near Saská Kamenice. There was a longer break, which was primarily used to bury the prisoners who died on the way. The death toll from starvation and the great suffering caused by travelling in open carriages was considerable.
In Gottlobland there is a mass grave of around 600 of our comrades in a nearby forest.
Just as our train pulled into Reitzenhain station, it was attacked by American deep-sea bombers. There was great panic. We (who still had the strength) jumped out of the wagons and ran through the city, into the forest, etc. After the raid, the SS men’s transport, the Volkssturm and the Hitler Youth were herded back into the broken station building. As we later learned, anyone who did not return to the train station was captured by Volkssturm and Hitler Youth gangs and shot there.
After a long wait, the transport commander, Oberscharführer SS Schmidt, was told the following: “We will go to Theresienstadt on foot.” We have no food and I don’t know if we will get anything on the way. Anyone who feels strong enough to walk this route should gather in front of the train station. The sick and those unable to march should remain in their places in the wagons; I will take care of their transport.”
However, we already knew similar SS man promises and began the march. After we left for Chomutov, the Gestapo from Chomutov came to Reitzenhain and shot sick comrades who could not make the journey on foot, about 500 in total. There will certainly also be a mass grave near this train station.
Our next sad journey through Michanice, Udlice, Postoloprty, Lovosice, Litoměřice and Theresienstadt claimed the lives of hundreds more of our friends.
Out of a total of about 2,350 prisoners, we lost about 800 after this terrible journey to Theresienstadt, where, however, many more died of exhaustion and typhus that we had brought with us. This was not surprising, because we were infested with lice, we had no opportunity to wash throughout our journey, and we didn’t even have water to drink. I could write entire novels about this transport’s overnight stay in the open air and in half-demolished enclosures.
Document funded by the Chomutov District Museum – edited and shortened.
Chomutov cemetery. After the exhumation, the victims were properly buried.
Protocol on the exhumation of corpses, carried out on April 12, 1946.
