- The death marches were the evacuation of prisoners of outer border concentration camps to more central locations. Soon after the evacuations began, Allied troops had taken control of Germany's border air space, so the prisoners were forced to walk hundreds of miles without food or water to central camps where conditions would have been worse than before. Prisoners who the SS guard deemed as unable to walk or travel were killed and left behind. The death marches were another way for the Nazis to kill the Jews by forcing them to walk until they died of exhaustion or starvation.