The March (1945)

The March (1945)

"The March" refers to a series of death marches during the final stages of the Second World War in Europe. From a total of 257,000 western Allied prisoners of war held in German military prison camps, over 80,000 POWs were forced to march westward across Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Germany in extreme winter conditions, over about four months between January and April 1945. This series of events has been called various names: "The Great March West", "The Long March", "The Long Walk", "The Long Trek", "The Black March", "The Bread March", but most survivors just called it "The March".

As the Soviet Army was advancing, German authorities decided to evacuate POW camps, to delay liberation of the prisoners. At the same time, hundreds of thousands of German civilian refugees, most of them women and children, as well as civilians of other nationalities, were also making their way westward on foot, in hazardous weather conditions.

Notorious examples include:

• from Stalag Luft IV at Gross Tychow in Pomerania the prisoners faced a 500 mile trek in blizzard conditions across Germany, during which hundreds died, and;
• a march from Stalag VIII-B, known as the "Lamsdorf Death March", which was similar to the better-known Bataan Death March (1942) in terms of mortality rates.