March 21, 1945 Holocaust: "For many of those on the death marches,

 March 21, 1945 Holocaust: "For many of those on the death marches,

the distance they were from the Red Army could be calculated only by the sound of distant artillery fire, as their German guards drove them further and further away from the front line. 

When the Red Army drew too near, the marchers would be put in trains. Aliza Besser, one of the two hundred survivors of the thousand Jewish women who had marched on foot from the camp at Neusalz to Flossenberg, was among those who were sent on the next stage of their horrendous journey, by sealed cattle truck, they knew not where. 

On March 21, after three days and nights in the train, she noted: 

> It's almost a week already that we are in the trucks. No water. They die of thirst. Lips are parched. Every other day they give a few cups of water, occasionally they bring a bucket of water which is intended for seventy people. There's nothing with which to take the water. There are only a few cups in every truck, and everyone wants to drink. 

> Commotion breaks out, and the German guards pour away the water in front of us all. Water that no one drank. . . .

> Three days later, the train reached Belsen. Of the thousand Jewish women who had set off tw o months earlier, less than two hundred reached Belsen alive."

#  From *The Holocaust: A History of the Jews of Europe During the Second World War*, by Martin Gilbert 

IMAGE: Prisoners on a death march from Dachau move towards the south along the Noerdliche Muenchner street in Gruenwald. German civilians secretly photographed several death marches from the Dachau concentration camp as the prisoners moved slowly through the Bavarian towns of Gruenwald, Wolfratshausen, and Herbertshausen. Few civilians gave aid to the prisoners on the death marches.