18 May 2021 – 27 August 2021

“The real suffering started then. After three days of marching, we arrived in Gleiwitz. The next day we were taken to Buchenwald. It took us eleven days to get there and we had to face indescribable ordeals.”

Towards the end of the Second World War, hundreds of thousands of prisoners still held within the Nazi camp system were forcibly evacuated in terrible conditions under heavy guard. Many of these chaotic, and brutal, evacuations became known as ‘death marches’ by those who endured them. They form the last ruthless chapter of the Nazi genocide, one that is little-known or understood.

The death marches resulted in tens of thousands of people dying at the roadside of exhaustion, being shot for failing to keep up, or murdered in seemingly random massacres. The victims were totally at the whim of the guards, who left a trail of blood across Europe.

The Wiener Holocaust Library’s new exhibition, Death Marches: Evidence and Memory, will bring to light this often unknown, overlooked and understudied aspect of the Holocaust and uncover how forensic and other evidence about the death marches has been gathered since the end of the war.