Buchenwald Concentration Camp Liberation Photos Near Weimar, Germany, 1945

güttsfükk · #1 ● 02-18-2009, 01:49 AM

Prisoners seized control of Buchenwald concentration camp near Weimar, Germany, and US troops arrived on April 11, 1945. About 21,000 prisoners remained inside. Approximately 250,000 people had passed through the Buchenwald camp system since it opened in July 1937, and the SS murdered at least 56,000 male prisoners there. Deaths during evacuation marches came in addition to that figure.

Most of the photographs date from April and May 1945. They show bodies stacked near the crematorium, a corpse wagon, bones in the ovens, survivors in the barracks and child survivors after liberation. Other images show Weimar civilians touring the camp on April 16, members of Congress visiting on April 24, Rabbi Herschel Schacter leading a Shavuot service and prisoners displaying preserved organs to an American soldier. One photograph shows the main camp in 1944 after being taken clandestinely by prisoner Georges Angéli. Soviet occupation authorities later operated the site as NKVD Special Camp No. 2, where 7,113 of approximately 28,500 detainees died between 1945 and 1950.