1944-1945: Death Marches and Liberation

1944-1945: Death Marches and Liberation. Holocaust Memorial. , As millions of Jews were being killed, the Nazis also murdered hundreds of thousands of others including gypsies, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, the mentally disabled, anti-Nazis, and the chronically ill. Sadistic "medical" experiments were conducted on hundreds of healthy subjects under guise of scientific research. Those not tortured to death were left scarred for life. , Allied forces landed on Normandy on June 6, 1944. As they neared the camps, hundreds of thousands of inmates were evacuated with little food or clothing and marched or taken in open transports from camp to camp. Those unable to keep up were shot. Between 300,000-400,000 other Jews were evacuated to construct military fortifications in southern Germany and Austria. Efforts to destroy evidence of Nazi atrocities using Jewish labor failed because of the magnitude of the task. , Auschwitz was liberated on January 26, 1945 by the Soviet army; Buchenwald on April 11 by Americans; Bergen-Belsen on April 15 by the British; Dachau on April 29 and Mauthausen on May 3 by the Americans. The war ended on May 8, 1945. , From October 1945 to October 1946, the international military tribunal, deliberating in Nuremberg, tried twenty-two leading Nazis. Twelve were sentenced to death, three to life in prison, four to long terms in prison and three were not convicted. , Whether western civilization will learn to respect the rights of Jews and other minorities remains unanswered. Let us hope that the lessons of the Holocaust will never be forgotten and become an eternal warning against the dangers of Nazism, bigotry and hatred.