Mauthausen, Austria. As transports intensified (mostly of “political” prisoners) from across Europe, convoys of deportees arrested during the strikes of March 1944 arrived in Italy. On March 11, a convoy arrived with 597 deportees from Tuscany, Piedmont, and Lombardy; on March 16, 563 deportees from Piedmont, Lombardy, and Liguria; in early April, another 600 Italians arrived from Lombardy. There were 15 transports from Italy throughout the year. The deported women (mostly striking workers) did not remain in Mauthausen, but were moved to Auschwitz or Ravensbrück. Toward the end of 1944, the Nazis began the evacuation of the eastern concentration camps and Auschwitz, bringing in survivors of the death marches to Mauthausen. The weakest were eliminated, and the others were distributed to secondary camps. The population of the Mauthausen complex camps thus increased to over 72,000 (including approximately 1,000 women).
