Who was Liberated?
Prisoners of Nazi camps who had been liberated were living under extremely harsh conditions and were subject to starvation and disease. Many of the people who had been liberated had survived "death marches." During Summer 1944, as the Allies advanced in the West and the Soviets advanced in the East, the Nazis began to send concentration camp prisoners on forced marches over long distances. Prisoners were abused, and sometimes killed, by the guards that accompanied them. Approximately 250,000 concentration camp prisoners died on death marches.The German leadership believed that the Third Reich would survive the war. They therefore attempted to move concentration camp prisoners into Germany's borders, so that they could still be exploited for slave labor. Upon entering Auschwitz-Birkenau, Soviet soldiers found only 7,650 prisoners living there. Most of the 58,000 remaining camp prisoners had been sent on death marches at the end of 1944.