in 1926. Prisoners worked on 11-hour shifts unless they were working in the tunnels, when they worked in one of three 8-hour shifts. While about a third of prisoners were constantly at the edge of starvation, a "high society" of 7-8% of prisoners worked in jobs inside the camp, had clothing, and extra opportunities to get food. Educated "political" prisoners were placed in administrative tasks, while criminal prisoners also had desirable positions in the prison's self-government. The death rate for Italian prisoners in Ebensee was 53%; after Mussolini's fall in 1943, Italians were marked as traitors. Jewish prisoners had a death rate of almost 40%. The nationality with the lowest death rate was Spanish, with a 0.9% death rate. As allied forces closed in on Nazi territories, prisoners from other camps were sent to Ebensee, and there was not enough food to feed everyone. In May 1944, about 15% of prisoners were officially ill, but in May 1945, just before liberation, almost half of the prisoners were officially ill. Prisoner doctors and fellow Spanish prisoners working in medical supply depots smuggled additional food into the camp. From 1943 to 1944, many dangerously ill prisoners were transported back to Mauthausen. In June 1944, Jewish prisoners started to arrive. Beginning in 1945, thousands of prisoners from other concentration camps arrived in Ebensee. They were mostly Jewish. On 3 March 1945 over 2,000 Jewish prisoners arrived from the Wolfsberg sub-camp of
Gross-Rosen. Commander Anton Ganz forced them to remain outside during snowy weather for almost two days, and hundreds of prisoners died of exhaustion caused by transport to the camp and of exposure. The following April, around 4,500 prisoners died. In May 1945, there were 18,500 inmates. After the many deaths in March and April, the crematorium could not cremate all the bodies, and Ganz ordered two secret mass graves to dispose of 2,167 dead bodies. == Liberation ==