10 chilling accounts of the death marches at the close of World War II reveal some of the most harrowing atrocities ever recorded. These forced treks were designed either to exterminate prisoners or to keep them from being liberated by the advancing Allies, and in some cases they were intended to supply future hostages. The witnesses saw the cold‑blooded murder of family, friends, adults, and children, and they survived to tell the tale of those darkest days.
10 David Friedmann
Before the Holocaust, David Friedmann was one of Berlin’s most important and prolific portrait artists. Although he and his family escaped to Prague in 1938, they were deported to Łódź’s Jewish Ghetto in 1941. Friedmann was eventually sent to Gleiwitz I and became part of the death march to Blechhammer. His family perished at Auschwitz.
Friedmann and the other prisoners set out on January 21, 1945, trudging the 100 kilometres (60 mi) to the next camp. He later wrote about the merciless execution of those too weak to continue, recalling that he himself was nearly one of the victims. He credited a doctor named Orenstein and two friends for pulling him to safety and getting him to Blechhammer, where the Soviets liberated them days later.
After the war, Friedmann returned to painting, immortalising the scenes from the concentration camps he endured as well as the brutal death march itself.
9 Salvator Moshe
Salvator Moshe was born in Greece, where his family had settled generations before, fleeing persecution by the Spanish Inquisition. Moshe and the other Jewish residents of Salonika were deported to German concentration camps in 1943.
Moshe and his brother‑in‑law were part of a 4,000‑person death march from the Warsaw Ghetto to Dachau in 1944. The march stretched on for days. On the third day, the guards ordered a halt beside a river, promising the prisoners a drink. As Moshe reached for water, he heard the crack of gunfire: “[A] fellow next to me, he was drinking water, but I heard bullets. They shooting. Zzz, zzz, zzz. Coming.”
The officers opened fire on the prisoners as they knelt to drink, and when the survivors scrambled back to the road they witnessed more soldiers shooting those who could not keep moving. Moshe and his brother‑in‑law survived and were liberated by U.S. troops outside Seeshaupt.
8 William Dyess
A U.S. fighter pilot, William Dyess survived the infamous Bataan Death March. He escaped in 1943 and eventually made his way back to the United States.
Dyess published a harrowing account of the horrors he witnessed, beginning with the first murder he observed. He described an Air Force captain being searched by a Japanese private who discovered a handful of yen. Upon seeing the money, the private—whom Dyess described as a giant—stepped aside and beheaded the captain.
Dyess also detailed the so‑called “Oriental sun treatment,” where captives were forced to sit in the scorching sun for hours without protection or water. The marchers were trailed by a “clean‑up squad” of Japanese soldiers who killed anyone who fell behind. Once they arrived at San Fernando, the survivors found conditions so dire they could barely muster the strength to protest.
7 Eva Gestl Burns
When Soviet forces closed in on Auschwitz and its surrounding labor camps, the remaining prisoners were forced to march. Eva Gestl Burns was working at an ammunition factory when the order came, and she later recounted a daring escape.
The prisoners wore winter coats, each marked with a striped square. Many women, including Eva, carried scissors and thread, allowing them to remove the striped squares, patch the holes with plain fabric from elsewhere on the coat, and then replace the striped pieces until an opportunity arose.
Eva and a single companion seized their chance while being assembled into rows. When no one was watching, they fled, tore the striped fabric from their coats, and ultimately joined a group of German refugees heading toward the Sudetenland.
6 Stanislaw Jaskolski
In January 1945, prisoners at the Stutthof camp system were herded from their camps. Roughly 50,000 people were scattered; about 5,000 were marched to the Baltic Sea, ordered into the water, and shot. Others were sent eastward into Germany.
Stanislaw Jaskolski later described the march. He remembered the bitter cold and the tiny bag of supplies they were handed: shirts, long johns, half a loaf of bread, and a slab of margarine. They received a scattering of blankets meant to be shared as they were herded onto the road.
As they marched, Jaskolski reflected on what they were leaving behind—the gallows, gas chambers, and crematoriums. Though freezing, he recalled thinking that at that moment they were, “doing pretty good.”
5 Jack Aizenberg
Jack Aizenberg was one of 60 people (out of 600) who survived the 160‑kilometre (100 mi) death march from Colditz Castle to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. The 16‑year‑old was already starving and endured a week without food. Fellow prisoners were so famished they resorted to eating grass.
When they stopped for the night at a factory, Aizenberg discovered a single pea. He wanted to boil it over a fire and was terrified someone might steal it. He split the pea into four pieces to stretch it, and it remained his sole nourishment for the entire march.
Aizenberg finally reached Theresienstadt, knowing he was near death—but he no longer cared. Soviet forces liberated the camp days later, and he was taken to Britain as part of a resettlement program for war orphans.
4 John Olson
Colonel John Olson survived the Bataan Death March and the subsequent horrors of Camp O’Donnell.
When the survivors arrived at the camp, locals were granted permission to provide them food. They were also given a welcome speech by a Japanese captain who explained that his only regret was that his code of honor prohibited him from killing the prisoners outright.
As personnel adjutant, Olson kept meticulous daily records of camp life, later using his notes to write a book. His journal documented details such as the increase in daily sugar rations (to 10 grams each) and the daily death toll. He also wrote about the burial detail, noting how men volunteered to ensure their friends received proper burials.
3 Ingeborg Neumeyer
After World War I, roughly three million ethnic Germans lived in the area that became Czechoslovakia. By World II, those Germans were no longer deemed racially pure and fell under the wrath of the Third Reich.
Ingeborg Neumeyer was 15 when she and her family were dragged from their apartment on 31 May 1945 and forced into the streets to join what became known as the Brno death march. She later recalled seeing people shot for lagging behind and her mother’s desperate attempt to ensure her daughter had clothing.
Neumeyer was wearing three dresses when the march began. When she tried to discard two of them, a guard saw her, beat her bloody, stripped her of the clothes, and threw away her shoes.
2 Marie Ranzenhoferova
Marie Ranzenhoferova was 24 when she trekked from Brno to the Austrian border. A would‑be suitor promised safety for her and her baby if she stayed with him, but she refused; he later forced her at gunpoint to join the march.
Marie recounted families forced to abandon homes they had occupied for generations, leaving behind priceless heirlooms they could no longer carry. She remembered guards from concentration camps who were less cruel than the men from the Zbrojovka arms factory. Those men were violent drunks; one grabbed a baby from a woman’s arms and hurled it into a field because the child would not stop crying.
When they reached the border, Marie left the march, and around 700 people followed her into the village of Perna. She stayed there for a while before eventually moving to Mikulov.
1 Keith Botterill
Keith Botterill (pictured above on the right) is one of only six people who survived the Sandakan death march. He and the other survivors survived only because they escaped their Japanese captors during the march from Sandakan Camp.
Botterill recalled that the camp was relatively decent for the first twelve months. As the war dragged on, beatings and starvation worsened. When he and his companions planned an escape, they were caught stealing rice in preparation. Botterill’s friend, Richie Murray, stepped forward and confessed to the theft; he was bayoneted.
After their escape, another companion, weakened by dysentery, slit his own throat to avoid slowing them down. The other survivors—Owen Campbell, Nelson Short (pictured left), Bill Moxham, Bill Sticpewech (pictured centre), and James Richard Braithwaite—were all Australian. They had been warned to escape by a sympathetic Japanese officer who knew about an upcoming slaughter. Botterill died in 1997, just after completing a book about the remarkable story of the Sandakan Six.
0 Further Reading
Here is a small selection of lists from the archives based around World War II.
10 Bizarre World War II Weapons That Were Actually Built
10 Little‑Known Alternative Plans From World War II
10 Amazing Untold Stories From World War II
10 World War II Soldiers Who Pulled Off Amazing Feats