Escapes+from+the+Death+Camps?

[[image:http://popartmachine.com/artwork/LOC+1118270/0/[Concentration-camp-at-Emsland,-Germany---guard-in-watch-tower...-painting-artwork-print.jpg align="center" link="http://www.fasttrackteaching.com/burns/Unit_10_WW2/U10_Holocaust.html"]] Escapes from Death Camps? There were many attempts to escape the Nazi Death Camps. Obviously "the desire to save one's life was accompanied by yearnings for freedom, family, friends and one's homeland" (Swiebocki 235). Spread the truth of the evil and harsh ways of the Nazis that were shaded from the public eye. It was, of course, very hard to escape as there were many armed guards that patrolled the grounds and stood in watch towers. In some cases they could shoot any people that tried to escape. Also the camps had a special __security system__ that was constantly becoming more and more strong and complicated that posed a huge difficulty for those who attempted to escape. Not to mention the camps were placed in areas far isolated from civilization. Often they were in barren, open, flat wastelands so not only would you have nothing to live off of, you had to somehow just keep going, and maybe find civilization, but also the guards could probably see you running or sneaking away on the barren land and alert other guards or shoot you themselves. The average distance from any civilization is a little more than 50 miles so it would be very hard to survive and make it out to a populated area.

Most of the time prisoners would try to escape in groups of about ten. When the were caught they were immediately killed, so escaping was a right away life or death run. They were usually killed by being hung or by being executed with a bullet to the head. Anyone who was housed in the same living quarters as them was killed as well, no matter if they were involved with the escape or not. This tactic promoted many of the prisoners to tell the other prisoners in their living quarters not to escape. This also promoted people to escape as a group from their living quarters, this way it would be easier to catch them as they are a larger and slower group. Often there were camps or underground societies that were nearby outside the camps that would take in, feed, and get safely to civilization the prisoners that had successfully escaped. These societies were sometimes caught and killed for their doings. Escapes  were rarely successful, those who made it off the camps often died before they could reach civilization, and tons were killed because they were caught escaping, but they didn't really have much of a choice; if they didn't try they would be brutally murdered inside the camps.

To learn more about the escapes from, and revolts within, the concentration and death camps, click [|here] (Warning: some material may not be suitable for all ages).