Death marches ( Holocaust ) Death marches ( Todesmärsche in German ) refer to the forcible movements of prisoners in Nazi Germany . They occurred at various points during the Holocaust , including in 1939 in the Lublin province of Poland , in 1942 in the Ukraine , and between Autumn 1944 and late April 1945 from Nazi concentration camp s and prisoner of war camps near the eastern front , to camps inside Germany away from front lines and Allied forces to remove evidence from concentration camps and to prevent the repatriation of prisoners of war . General . Toward the end of World War II in 1944 , Allied forces advanced from the west , while forces of the Soviet Union advanced from the east . Trapped in the middle , the SS – not wanting the world to know about the Holocaust – decided to abandon the Nazi concentration camps , moving or destroying evidence of the atrocities they had committed there . Thousands of prisoners were killed in the camps before the marches commenced . These executions were deemed crimes against humanity during the Nuremberg trials . Although most of the prisoners were already very weak or ill after enduring the routine violence , overwork , and starvation of concentration camp or prison camp life , they were marched for miles in the snow to railway stations , then transported for days at a time without food , water , or shelter in freight carriages originally designed for cattle . On arrival at their destination , they were then forced to march again to new camps . Prisoners who were unable to keep up due to fatigue or illness were usually executed by gunshot . The first evacuation of Majdanek inmates started in April 1944 . The prisoners of Kaiserwald were transported to Stutthof or killed in August . Mittelbau - Dora was evacuated in April 1945 . The SS killed large numbers of prisoners by starvation before the marches , and shot many more dead both during and after for not being able to keep pace . Seven hundred prisoners were killed during one ten - day march of 8 , 000 Jews , including 6 , 000 women , who were being moved from camps in the Danzig region . Those still alive when the marchers reached the coast were forced into the Baltic Sea and shot . Elie Wiesel , Holocaust survivor and winner of the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize , describes in his 1958 book " Night " how he and his father , Shlomo , were forced on a death march from Buna to Buchenwald . Auschwitz to Wodzisław Śląski . The most notorious of the death marches took place in January 1945 , when the Soviet army advanced on occupied Poland . Nine days before the Soviets arrived at the death camp at Auschwitz , the SS marched nearly 60 , 000 prisoners out of the camp toward Wodzisław Śląski ( German : Loslau ) , 35 miles away , where they were put on freight trains to other camps . Approximately 15 , 000 prisoners died on the way . Stutthof to Lauenburg . The evacuation of prisoners from the Stutthof camp system in northern Poland began in January 1945 . About 5 , 000 prisoners from Stutthof subcamps were marched to the Baltic Sea coast , forced into the water , and machine gunned . The rest of the prisoners were marched in the direction of Lauenburg in eastern Germany . They were cut off by the advancing Soviet forces . The Germans forced the surviving prisoners back to Stutthof . Marching in severe winter conditions and treated brutally by SS guards , thousands died during the march . In late April 1945 , the remaining prisoners were removed from Stutthof by sea , since it was completely encircled by Soviet forces . Again , hundreds of prisoners were forced into the sea and shot . Over 4 , 000 were sent by small boat to Germany , some to the Neuengamme concentration camp near Hamburg , and some to camps along the Baltic coast . Many drowned along the way . Shortly before the German surrender , some prisoners were transferred to Malmo , Sweden , and released to the care of that neutral country . It has been estimated that over 25 , 000 prisoners , one in two , died during the evacuation from Stutthof and its subcamps . One hundred prisoners were liberated from Stutthof on May 9 , 1945 . Chelm and Hrubieszow to Sokal . In December 1939 , male Jews from Chelm , Poland aged between 16 and 60 , were forced on a death march to the nearby town of Hrubieszow . There , Jews were rounded up and forced to join the Chelm Jews on a march to Sokal , Ukraine ( formerly Poland ) . In all , an estimated 2 , 000 Jews were murdered on this death march . There were only a handful of survivors . Belz to Hrubieszow . In early June , 1942 Jews concentrated in Belz were driven in a 31 mi . ( 60 km . ) death march to Hrubieszow . Those who could not continue on the way were shot by the SS guards . All death march survivors were deported along with about 3 , 000 Jews from Hrubieszow to Sobibor .