| has gloss | eng: "The March" refers to a series of death marches during the final stages of the Second World War in Europe. Over 80,000 Allied PoWs were force-marched westward across Poland, Czechoslovakia and Germany in appalling winter conditions, lasting about four months from January to April 1945 (there were a total of 257,000 British and American prisoners of war in German prisons). It has been called various names: "The Great March West", "The Long March", "The Long Walk", "The Long Trek", "The Black March", "The Bread March", but most survivors just called it "The March". From Stalag Luft IV at Gross Tychow in Pomerania the prisoners faced a 500 mile trek in blizzard conditions across Germany in which hundreds died. One of the marches from Stalag VIII-B was called " and it came very close to the Bataan Death March in percentage of mortality rates. |
