You searched for: death train

death train

| Displaying results 1-10 of 167 for "death train" |

  • Dachau death train

    Photo

    Corpses lie in one of the open railcars of the Dachau death train. The Dachau death train consisted of nearly forty cars containing the bodies of between two and three thousand prisoners transported to Dachau in the last days of the war. Dachau, Germany, April 29, 1945. This image is among the commonly reproduced and distributed, and often extremely graphic, images of liberation. These photographs provided powerful documentation of the crimes of the Nazi era. 

    Dachau death train
  • One of the railcars of the Dachau death train

    Photo

    Corpses lie in one of the open railcars of the Dachau death train. The Dachau death train consisted of nearly forty cars containing the bodies of between two and three thousand prisoners transported to Dachau in the last days of the war. Dachau, Germany, April 29, 1945. This image is among the commonly reproduced and distributed, and often extremely graphic, images of liberation. These photographs provided powerful documentation of the crimes of the Nazi era. 

    One of the railcars of the Dachau death train
  • Death Marches

    Article

    As Allied forces approached Nazi camps in the last months of WWII, the SS organized brutal “death marches” (forced evacuations) of concentration camp inmates.

    Death Marches
  • Death Marches

    Article

    Near the end of WWII, the Germans began marching prisoners out of camps and away from the front. Read more about the brutal conditions of these death marches.

    Death Marches
  • Death Marches: Photographs

    Media Essay

    SS guards brutally mistreated the prisoners during the death marches. They shot prisoners who...

  • Kurt Klein describes a group of death march survivors in a Czechoslovak village

    Oral History

    As Nazi anti-Jewish policy intensified, Kurt's family decided to leave Germany. Kurt left for the United States in 1937, but his parents were unable to leave before the outbreak of World War II. Kurt's parents were eventually deported to Auschwitz, in German-occupied Poland. In 1942, Kurt joined the United States Army and was trained in military intelligence. In Europe, he interrogated prisoners of war. In May 1945, he took part in the surrender of a village in Czechoslovakia and returned the next day to…

    Kurt Klein describes a group of death march survivors in a Czechoslovak village
  • Benjamin (Beryl) Ferencz describes collecting evidence of death marches

    Oral History

    Ben was born in a small village in the Carpathian Mountains of Transylvania in Romania. When he was an infant, his family moved to the United States. Ben attended Harvard University, where he studied criminal law. Ben graduated from Harvard University Law School in 1943. He joined a US anti-aircraft artillery battalion that was training in preparation for an Allied invasion of western Europe. At the end of World War II in Europe, Ben was transferred to the war crimes investigation branch of the US Army. He…

    Benjamin (Beryl) Ferencz describes collecting evidence of death marches
  • Barbara Marton Farkas describes the death march from the Gross-Rosen camp in Germany

    Oral History

    Barbara was born in the province of Arad in northern Transylvania, Romania. She went to school until the Hungarian army occupied the area in 1940 and she was no longer allowed to attend. After the Germans occupied Hungary in 1944, discrimination against Jews intensified. Barbara and her family were forced into the Oradea ghetto. She worked in the ghetto hospital until she was deported to the Auschwitz camp. At Auschwitz, she worked in the kitchens to receive extra food. She was deported to another camp,…

    Barbara Marton Farkas describes the death march from the Gross-Rosen camp in Germany
  • Harold Herbst describes meeting a prisoner on the verge of death (known as a "Muselmann") in Buchenwald

    Oral History

    After studying medicine at Wayne State University in Michigan, Harold joined the army in 1942. He was attached to the 107th Evacuation Hospital. The unit trained in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and then tracked the US First Army after the June 1944 Normandy invasion. Harold was attached to the US Third Army under George S. Patton in December. He went to Buchenwald shortly after the SS guards fled the camp in April 1945.

    Tags: Buchenwald
    Harold Herbst describes meeting a prisoner on the verge of death (known as a "Muselmann") in Buchenwald
  • David (Dudi) Bergman describes bar mitzvah during deportation by cattle train from Auschwitz to Plaszow

    Oral History

    The Germans occupied David's town, previously annexed by Hungary, in 1944. David was deported to Auschwitz and, with his father, transported to Plaszow. David was sent to the Gross-Rosen camp and to Reichenbach. He was then among three of 150 in a cattle car who survived transportation to Dachau. He was liberated after a death march from Innsbruck toward the front line of combat between US and German troops.

    Tags: deportations
    David (Dudi) Bergman describes bar mitzvah during deportation by cattle train from Auschwitz to Plaszow

Thank you for supporting our work

We would like to thank Crown Family Philanthropies and the Abe and Ida Cooper Foundation for supporting the ongoing work to create content and resources for the Holocaust Encyclopedia. View the list of all donors.