The Holocaust ended in May 1945 with the military defeat of Nazi Germany and its European collaborators in World War II. As Allied forces—the Soviet, US, British, and Canadian troops—advanced across Europe, they liberated Nazi concentration and extermination camps, freeing survivors and providing them medical aid. The Nazis attempted to destroy evidence of their crimes and forcibly evacuated prisoners on brutal death marches to prevent their liberation, but the Holocaust effectively ended with Germany's defeat and the liberation of the camps by Allied forces.