Monument, memorial death march of concentration camp prisoners of Dachau, 1945
Dachau to the Austrian border On April 24, 1945, the satellite labor camps around Dachau were being cleared out by the Nazis ahead of the advancing Allied troops, and some 15,000 prisoners were first marched to the Dachau camp, only to be sent southwards on a death march towards the Austrian border,[8] the path for which generally headed southwards, partly along the eastern shore of the Starnberger See, taking a left turn to the east in the town of Eurasburg. By the timeframe of the second of May 1945, only some 6,000 of the prisoners sent on the death march were still alive, as those in failing health were being shot dead as they fell along the route. On that day, as the eastwards-marching prisoners had passed through Bad Tölz and were nearing Waakirchen, nearly sixty kilometers (37 miles) south of Dachau, several hundred of them were lying on the open ground in ill health, and among them were some who had already died from ill health and exposure to the elements, nearly all covered in freshly-fallen snow. These prisoners were spotted by advance scouts of the Army's 522nd Field Artillery Battalion, the only segregated Japanese American-manned military unit in Germany at the time — who had, only days before, liberated the Kaufering IV Hurlach satellite slave labor camp[9] of the Dachau main camp's "system", and many of whose own relatives were themselves interned during the war on American soil — with the American troops doing what they could in attempts to save those left alive, for at least two days before dedicated medical personnel could take over
Size: 3118px × 2079px
Photo credit: © Manfred Glueck / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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