{"id":133,"date":"2023-10-29T18:28:31","date_gmt":"2023-10-29T18:28:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stalag.malbork.pl\/en\/?page_id=133"},"modified":"2023-11-02T18:28:33","modified_gmt":"2023-11-02T18:28:33","slug":"marsz-smierci","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/stalag.malbork.pl\/en\/marsz-smierci\/","title":{"rendered":"Death March 1945"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Death March or the Long March are synonyms for the evacuation of prisoners of war from
occupied Poland, Czechoslovakia and Germany organized by the German command and camp authorities in January 1945. It was said that the main reason was the progressing invasion of the Red Army to the west. In fact, it was a badly held operation which, for the malnourished, sick and exhausted men imprisoned in the eastern stalags and offlags meant travelling long distances on foot in temperatures below 20 degrees Celsius and falling snow on roads full of civilian refugees and troops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stalag XXB Marienburg Willenberg was evacuated on January 23, 1945 and belonged to the so-
called northern road. James Fulton, a British man of confidence and a person representing PoWs to the camp authorities, stated in his report that on that day there were about 10,000 prisoners of various nationalities in Willenberg (Wielbark today). A few days earlier the camp’s population had increased as soldiers employed in working parties located in the east returned to the main camp. The man of confidence received promises from the camp authorities that the transport of ill man and parcels from the Red Cross would be provided. The first one was never fulfilled and food rations in the form of Red Cross parcels were issued only for the next three days. The ill and medical staff were left behind in the camp hospital located in the town.

At 11 p.m. the gate of the main camp was opened and the soldiers, arranged in columns, passed
through it for the last time, heading towards Tczew. It was a depressing sight. Thousands of men dressed in several layers of clothes, pulling self-made sledges with a small supply of food, dishes, blankets and private belongings, slowly moved through the deserted streets of Marienburg among falling snow, wind and freeze. The march to the Nogat bridge took several hours.
For the prisoners who left the camp it was the beginning of three and a half months lasted hell. Every day was a fight with hunger, tiredness, exhaustion, dirt, fear, frostbites, dysentery and uncertainty.

The prisoners walked about 30 km every day. They usually stayed overnight in abandoned
churches, barns, farm buildings or slept on the ground in the open fields. The guards often did not allow them to light a fire to heat meals, make hot tea or warm up. Since the soldiers fell asleep immediately from exhaustion, James Fulton organised groups of stronger prisoners to wake them the. It probably prevented many deaths caused by hypothermia.

Most of the prisoners went over 1,000 km and despite exhaustion and illness, they were even
forced to work by the German authorities. Their task was to clean and remove debris from railway lines after Allied air raids. Many of them did not finish the march. Until today the exact number of people who died during it is unknown. After the liberation, mainly by British or American troops, they reached Great Britain by planes. Those who agreed, were interviewed about their time spent in captivity. Their words were carefully recorded and the records are now available at the National Archives in London. This is an incredible resource for families and researchers working on PoWs issues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Death March or the Long March are synonyms for the evacuation of prisoners of war fromoccupied Poland, Czechoslovakia and Germany organized by the German command and camp authorities in January 1945. It was said that the main reason was the progressing invasion of the Red Army to the west. In fact, it was a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-133","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/stalag.malbork.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/stalag.malbork.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/stalag.malbork.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stalag.malbork.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stalag.malbork.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/stalag.malbork.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/133\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":218,"href":"http:\/\/stalag.malbork.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/133\/revisions\/218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/stalag.malbork.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}