Elie Wiesel was forced on a death march out of Auschwitz 80 years ago

Elie Wiesel was forced on a death march out of Auschwitz 80 years ago #OTD. He and his father, Shlomo, were made to walk miles on foot in the freezing cold.

"I was putting one foot in front of the other mechanically. I was dragging with me this skeletal body which weighed so much," Elie wrote in his book "Night." "If only I could have got rid of it! In spite of my efforts not to think about it, I could feel myself as two entities—my body and me. I hated it."

With Soviet forces approaching and the German army in retreat, SS guards sent more than 60,000 prisoners away from Auschwitz, westward into Germany in mid-January 1945. A smaller number of prisoners, most of whom were too sick to move, remained behind.

Elie and Shlomo were later placed in open freight cars, which rolled through German towns and past German civilians. “They would stop and look at us without surprise,” Elie wrote. “One day when we had come to a stop, a worker took a piece of bread out of his bag and threw it … Dozens of starving men fought desperately over a few crumbs. The workers watched the spectacle with great interest.”

They arrived at the Buchenwald concentration camp in late January—around the time Auschwitz was liberated. Shortly after their arrival, Shlomo died in the middle of the night. Elie was liberated at Buchenwald in April 1945.

Photos: Elie Wiesel

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