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How many surviving prisoners did Soviet troops find at Auschwitz?
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Auschwitz
The entrance gates to the Auschwitz concentration camp, near Kraków, Poland; the sign reads “Arbeit Macht Frei” (“Work Liberates”).
When Soviet troops arrived at Auschwitz on January 27, 1945, they found 7,650 sick or starving prisoners remaining in the camp.1
In the days leading up to the liberation, the SS had attempted to conceal evidence of their crimes by forcing approximately 60,000 prisoners on "death marches" toward the interior of Germany. Those who were unable to keep up or survive the harsh conditions of these evacuations were often shot, and it is estimated that one in four prisoners died during these forced transfers.21