Lesson 12: Liberation of the Camps

Question 1

The process of evacuating camps

Answer 1

• Camps used until last minute
• Hoped Allied advance could be halted
• Loss of troops + resources → importance of Jewish labor
• Large numbers of Hungarian Jews sent to camps in 1944

Question 2

Purpose of evacuating camps

Answer 2

• Late 1944 - early 1945: Germany begin evacuating camps in Poland

Question 3

Discoveries at liberation of Auschwitz

Answer 3

• Jan 1945: Red army begin liberating Death Camps in Poland as they head towards Germany
• 27th Jan: 9,000 prisoners at Auschwitz liberated
• First camp seen as abandoned, people left to die
• Survivors greeted soldiers + liberators
• No food, fuel or water left for prisoners
• Most prisoners = weak, malnourished, ill
• Warehouses full of stolen Jewish goods (from inmates)
• 40km of eyeglasses, 100s of prosthetic limbs, 12,000 pots + pans
• 44,000 pairs of shoes, 3800 suitcases, childrens clothes + toys

Question 4

Discoveries at liberation of Bergen-Belsen

Answer 4

• 12th April 1945, Nazis agreed to surrender Bergen-Belsen camp
• 15th April 1945, British + Canadian troops of 11th Armored Division liberated Bergen-Belsen
• 60,000 in critical condition, starving, sick, brutalized
• Thousands of unburied corpses
• X Gas chambers at Bergen-Belsen, X mass executions as at Auschwitz, but suffered by terrible epidemic of Typhus by end of war
• Many died after liberation due to disease and re-introduction of food

Question 5

Struggles of Jewish people after liberation

Answer 5

• Fear of rebuilding lives
• Many tried to return home to reunite with missing family
• Many feared to return home b/c of antisemitism
• Many found themselves in refugee centers and displaced person camps
• Poland = more than 1,000 Jews killed after liberation