Argumentative Essay: Death Marches In The Holocaust

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Death Marches in the Holocaust The year is 1944, and you are a Jewish teenager. You are trapped in a Jewish concentration camp called Auschwitz. You know that it is one of the biggest killing centers for the Holocaust, but you are praying that American soldiers rescue you before you die. You are surrounded by other people, some you know and some you don’t. You were seperated from your family years ago, not knowing where they are now. You try not to accept the fact that they are most likely dead, but there isn’t much of a chance that they survived. Food doesn’t come to you often, so you have lost a lot of weight. You are very weak and it is hard for you to stand up due to your legs aching. The memories of what has happened and what is still to come will never leave your mind. Your best friend was killed right in front of you, and the only reason …show more content…

Sick or injured prisoners were usually killed before marches started. Jewish concentration camps were evacuated as Nazis tried to erase all evidence of their crimes. “SS authorities did not want prisoners to fall into enemy hands and tell their Holocaust stories” [Death Marches 2015]. Nazis and other German parties would be hated more in the world if stories of what they did to prisoners were told. This caused more prisoners to be killed during death marches and also liberated. “Some SS leaders believed irrationally that they could use Jewish concentration camp prisoners as hostages to bargain for a separate peace in the west and guarantee the survival of Nazi regime” [Death Marches 2015]. Nazis also believed that if they had Jewish prisoners in their hands, enemy troops would let them go to save the prisoners. This did not work due to prisoners being killed before enemies got to them or officers abandoning their prisoners to save themselves. Most prisoners did not reach the end point of the march due to being killed or, in rare cases,

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