Death marches (Holocaust)
The SS begins the final evacuation of Auschwitz
While the first columns were forming on the night of 17 January 1945, the SS held an ordinary three-o'clock roll call.
17 January 1945: the columns start moving
The Soviet Vistula–Oder offensive had broken the front on 12 January 1945, and within days the Red Army was approaching Oświęcim. On 17 January the SS began the final evacuation of the Auschwitz complex, forcing prisoners west on foot. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum dates the start of the death marches to that day; the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial gives 17–21 January for the operation as a whole.
Camp routine did not stop while it happened. At three in the morning during the night of 17–18 January, with prisoners and camp personnel already preparing to move out, a normal roll call was held. A witness estimated that about 11,000 prisoners left during that night, in temperatures around −10°C to −15°C.
Behind the departing columns the SS was already destroying the evidence, burning records and demolishing installations so that the camp would not be handed over intact.
18 January: the main camps and the last women's column
The next day the SS forced prisoners out of Auschwitz I, Birkenau and Monowitz — the date the USHMM gives for the evacuation of the principal camps. The final on-foot evacuation of women from Birkenau went out that day, in groups of roughly 500 escorted by SS personnel carrying rifles and machine guns. One survivor remembered receiving bread and margarine before departure, provisions wholly inadequate for a winter march followed by transport in open freight cars. More than 2,000 sick women stayed behind in the Birkenau hospital.
The last evacuation column left the main complex on 18 January, while departures from the wider subcamp network ran on to 21 January. The Memorial records approximately 56,000 prisoners marched out across those five days.
The road west, and the camp behind
Columns were driven toward railheads about 55 kilometres away at Gliwice or 63 kilometres at Wodzisław, then loaded into freight cars for camps deeper in the Reich; at Gliwice about sixty people were crowded into each open coal wagon, with no protection from the frost. Guards shot prisoners who fell behind; cold, starvation and exhaustion killed others. The Memorial estimates at least 9,000 and more probably as many as 15,000 deaths during the operation.
"Evacuation" was the perpetrators' administrative word for this.
Almost 9,000 prisoners remained across the main camps and subcamps, abandoned without organized care while SS patrols murdered about 700 more. Soviet troops reached Auschwitz, Birkenau and Monowitz on 27 January and found approximately 7,000 people alive.
Sources
- Death Marches from Auschwitz — United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
- The final evacuation and liquidation of the camp — Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum
- Evacuation and Liberation of Auschwitz in accounts of witnesses
- The escape of the SS and the final victims — Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum
Researched 23 Aug 2026 6 sources 2 audit passes, 2 issues open Date disputed
How this was checked
Researched from the web into a fact sheet, rewritten from that sheet, then audited against it by a different model. How the pipeline works →
Date disputed. Sources disagree; the research places it at 1945-01-17.
What the sources leave uncertain
- The Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial dates the start of the camp-system death marches to January 17. The USHMM dates the evacuation of Auschwitz I, Birkenau, and Monowitz to January 18. Thus January 18 is sound for the principal camps and final Birkenau columns, but not for saying the entire Auschwitz-system evacuation first began that day.
- Almost 9,000 prisoners were initially left across the complex; approximately 7,000 were still alive when Soviet troops arrived. These figures describe different moments and should not be interchanged.