L12: Liberation of the Camps

Question 1

purpose of evacuating camps

Answer 1

• x want prisoners to fall into allied + Soviet liberators -> tell stories
• needed prisoners to maintain production of armaments
• believed could use Jewish prisoners as hostage to bargain for a separate peace in the West (guarantee survival of Nazi regime)

Question 2

struggles of Jewish people after liberation

Answer 2

• small % of inmates who survived resembled skeletons bc force labour + lack of food compounded by months and years of abuse

Question 3

process of evacuating camps

Answer 3

• late 1944-early 1945: Gr begin evacuation camp in Poland
• healthy prisoners forced to walk to camps under control
• ill Jews = shot + left behind
• guards = burn warehouse + hide crimes

Question 4

discoveries at liberation of Bergen - Belsen

Answer 4

• 12 apr = Nazis agree to surrender Bergen-Belsen camp
• 15 apr= Brit + Canadian troops of 11th division liberated
• 60000 in critical conditions starving, sick and brutalised prisoners
• 1000s of corpses = unburied
• terrible epidemic of typhus = deadly
• many died after liberation due to disease or re-intro of food

Question 5

discoveries at liberation of Auschwitz

Answer 5

• jan 1945: red army began liberating death camps in Poland as they head Gr
• 27 jan: 9000 prisoners at Auschwitz liberated
• x food, fuel or water left
• most = weak, malnourished, ill
• warehouse full of goods stolen from Jewish inmates
• 40km of eyeglasses
• 7 tons of hair
• 100s of prosthetic limbs
• 44000 pairs of shoes
  etc