Camp evacuation in April 1945

Until the end, the SS tried to prevent the liberation of surviving concentration camp prisoners by Allied troops. The advance of the Soviet army led Himmler to order the evacuation of all camps once enemy troops had drawn near and the transfer of prisoners to concentration camps further west. Tens of thousands of concentration camp prisoners died during the evacuation marches, on the transport trains that often travelled aimlessly for days and in the extremely overcrowded transit camps.

In late March 1945 preparations also began in Melk for the evacuation of the concentration camp. Plans were made to force the prisoners into the ‘Quartz’ underground complex and murder them by destroying the tunnels with explosives, but these were not carried out. By 2 April 1945, 500 Melk concentration camp prisoners had been transferred to Amstetten to clear bomb damage. Between 11 and 15 April, the 7,401 prisoners still alive in the camp were transported away. The children and infirmary patients were taken to the Mauthausen main camp on 11 April. The Camp SS transferred all other prisoners to the Ebensee subcamp. They were divided into three large transports: some of them went by truck, some by train and some by ship downstream along the Danube. In the Melk camp, at least 30 prisoners who were too sick to be transported were murdered by SS men and prisoner functionaries shortly before the evacuation. Many more prisoners died on the evacuation transports. On 5 and 6 May, US troops liberated the Ebensee and Mauthausen camps, and with them the survivors of the Melk camp.