Nazi concentration camps, torture. The most terrible Nazi concentration camp

On April 27, 1940, the first Auschwitz concentration camp was created, intended for the mass extermination of people.

Concentration camp - a place for the forced isolation of real or perceived opponents of the state, political regime, etc. Unlike prisons, ordinary camps for prisoners of war and refugees, concentration camps were created by special decrees during the war, the aggravation of political struggle.

In Nazi Germany, concentration camps were an instrument of mass state terror and genocide. Although the term "concentration camp" was used to refer to all Nazi camps, there were actually several types of camps, and the concentration camp was just one of them.

Other types of camps included labor and forced labor camps, extermination camps, transit camps, and prisoner of war camps. As war events progressed, the distinction between concentration camps and labor camps became increasingly blurred, as hard labor was also used in concentration camps.

Concentration camps in Nazi Germany were created after the Nazis came to power in order to isolate and repress opponents of the Nazi regime. The first concentration camp in Germany was established near Dachau in March 1933.

By the beginning of World War II, there were 300 thousand German, Austrian and Czech anti-fascists in prisons and concentration camps in Germany. In subsequent years, Hitler's Germany created a gigantic network of concentration camps on the territory of the European countries it occupied, turning them into places for the organized systematic murder of millions of people.

Fascist concentration camps were intended for the physical destruction of entire peoples, primarily Slavic ones; total extermination of Jews and Gypsies. For this purpose, they were equipped with gas chambers, gas chambers and other means of mass extermination of people, crematoria.

(Military encyclopedia. Chairman of the Main Editorial Commission S.B. Ivanov. Military Publishing House. Moscow. in 8 volumes - 2004. ISBN 5 - 203 01875 - 8)

There were even special death (extermination) camps, where the liquidation of prisoners proceeded at a continuous and accelerated pace. These camps were designed and built not as places of detention, but as death factories. It was assumed that people doomed to death were supposed to spend literally several hours in these camps. In such camps, a well-functioning conveyor belt was built that turned several thousand people a day into ashes. These include Majdanek, Auschwitz, Treblinka and others.

Concentration camp prisoners were deprived of freedom and the ability to make decisions. The SS strictly controlled every aspect of their lives. Violators of the peace were severely punished, subjected to beatings, solitary confinement, food deprivation and other forms of punishment. Prisoners were classified according to their place of birth and reasons for imprisonment.

Initially, prisoners in the camps were divided into four groups: political opponents of the regime, representatives of the “inferior races,” criminals and “unreliable elements.” The second group, including Gypsies and Jews, were subject to unconditional physical extermination and were kept in separate barracks.

They were subjected to the most cruel treatment by the SS guards, they were starved, they were sent to the most grueling works. Among the political prisoners were members of anti-Nazi parties, primarily communists and social democrats, members of the Nazi party accused of serious crimes, listeners of foreign radio, and members of various religious sects. Among the “unreliable” were homosexuals, alarmists, dissatisfied people, etc.

There were also criminals in the concentration camps, whom the administration used as overseers of political prisoners.

All concentration camp prisoners were required to wear distinctive insignia on their clothing, including a serial number and a colored triangle (“Winkel”) on the left side of the chest and right knee. (In Auschwitz, the serial number was tattooed on the left forearm.) All political prisoners wore a red triangle, criminals wore a green triangle, “unreliables” wore a black triangle, homosexuals wore a pink triangle, and gypsies wore a brown triangle.

In addition to the classification triangle, Jews also wore yellow, as well as a six-pointed “Star of David”. A Jew who violated racial laws ("racial desecrator") was required to wear a black border around a green or yellow triangle.

Foreigners also had their own distinctive signs (the French wore the sewn letter “F”, the Poles - “P”, etc.). The letter "K" denoted a war criminal (Kriegsverbrecher), the letter "A" - a violator of labor discipline (from German Arbeit - "work"). The weak-minded wore the Blid badge - “fool”. Prisoners who participated or were suspected of escaping were required to wear a red and white target on their chest and back.

The total number of concentration camps, their branches, prisons, ghettos in the occupied countries of Europe and in Germany itself, where people were kept in the most difficult conditions and destroyed by various methods and means, is 14,033 points.

Of the 18 million citizens of European countries who passed through camps for various purposes, including concentration camps, more than 11 million people were killed.

The concentration camp system in Germany was liquidated along with the defeat of Hitlerism, and was condemned in the verdict of the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg as a crime against humanity.

Currently, the Federal Republic of Germany has adopted the division of places of forced detention of people during the Second World War into concentration camps and “other places of forced confinement, under conditions equivalent to concentration camps,” in which, as a rule, forced labor was used.

The list of concentration camps includes approximately 1,650 names of concentration camps of the international classification (main and their external commands).

On the territory of Belarus, 21 camps were approved as “other places”, on the territory of Ukraine - 27 camps, on the territory of Lithuania - 9, in Latvia - 2 (Salaspils and Valmiera).

On the territory of the Russian Federation, places of forced detention in the city of Roslavl (camp 130), the village of Uritsky (camp 142) and Gatchina are recognized as “other places”.

List of camps recognized by the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany as concentration camps (1939-1945)

1.Arbeitsdorf (Germany)
2. Auschwitz/Auschwitz-Birkenau (Poland)
3. Bergen-Belsen (Germany)
4. Buchenwald (Germany)
5. Warsaw (Poland)
6. Herzogenbusch (Netherlands)
7. Gross-Rosen (Germany)
8. Dachau (Germany)
9. Kauen/Kaunas (Lithuania)
10. Krakow-Plaszczow (Poland)
11. Sachsenhausen (GDR-FRG)
12. Lublin/Majdanek (Poland)
13. Mauthausen (Austria)
14. Mittelbau-Dora (Germany)
15. Natzweiler (France)
16. Neuengamme (Germany)
17. Niederhagen-Wewelsburg (Germany)
18. Ravensbrück (Germany)
19. Riga-Kaiserwald (Latvia)
20. Faifara/Vaivara (Estonia)
21. Flossenburg (Germany)
22. Stutthof (Poland).

Largest Nazi concentration camps

Buchenwald is one of the largest Nazi concentration camps. It was created in 1937 in the vicinity of Weimar (Germany). Originally called Ettersberg. Had 66 branches and external work teams. The largest: "Dora" (near the city of Nordhausen), "Laura" (near the city of Saalfeld) and "Ordruf" (in Thuringia), where the FAU projectiles were mounted. From 1937 to 1945 About 239 thousand people were prisoners of the camp. In total, 56 thousand prisoners of 18 nationalities were tortured in Buchenwald.

The camp was liberated on April 10, 1945 by units of the US 80th Division. In 1958, a memorial complex dedicated to Buchenwald was opened. to the heroes and victims of the concentration camp.

Auschwitz-Birkenau, also known by the German names Auschwitz or Auschwitz-Birkenau, is a complex of German concentration camps located in 1940-1945. in southern Poland 60 km west of Krakow. The complex consisted of three main camps: Auschwitz 1 (served as the administrative center of the entire complex), Auschwitz 2 (also known as Birkenau, "death camp"), Auschwitz 3 (a group of approximately 45 small camps set up in factories and mines around general complex).

More than 4 million people died in Auschwitz, among whom were more than 1.2 million Jews, 140 thousand Poles, 20 thousand Gypsies, 10 thousand Soviet prisoners of war and tens of thousands of prisoners of other nationalities.

On January 27, 1945, Soviet troops liberated Auschwitz. In 1947, the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum (Auschwitz-Brzezinka) was opened in Auschwitz.

Dachau (Dachau) - the first concentration camp in Nazi Germany, created in 1933 on the outskirts of Dachau (near Munich). Had approximately 130 branches and external work teams located in Southern Germany. More than 250 thousand people from 24 countries were prisoners of Dachau; About 70 thousand people were tortured or killed (including about 12 thousand Soviet citizens).

In 1960, a monument to the victims was unveiled in Dachau.

Majdanek - a Nazi concentration camp, was created in the suburbs of the Polish city of Lublin in 1941. It had branches in southeastern Poland: Budzyn (near Krasnik), Plaszow (near Krakow), Trawniki (near Wiepsze), two camps in Lublin. According to the Nuremberg trials, in 1941-1944. In the camp, the Nazis killed about 1.5 million people of various nationalities. The camp was liberated by Soviet troops on July 23, 1944. In 1947, a museum and research institute was opened in Majdanek.

Treblinka - Nazi concentration camps near the station. Treblinka in the Warsaw Voivodeship of Poland. In Treblinka I (1941-1944, so-called labor camp), about 10 thousand people died, in Treblinka II (1942-1943, extermination camp) - about 800 thousand people (mostly Jews). In August 1943, in Treblinka II, the fascists suppressed a prisoner uprising, after which the camp was liquidated. Camp Treblinka I was liquidated in July 1944 as Soviet troops approached.

In 1964, on the site of Treblinka II, a memorial symbolic cemetery for victims of fascist terror was opened: 17 thousand tombstones made of irregular stones, a monument-mausoleum.

Ravensbruck - a concentration camp was founded near the city of Fürstenberg in 1938 as an exclusively women's camp, but later a small camp for men and another for girls were created nearby. In 1939-1945. 132 thousand women and several hundred children from 23 European countries passed through the death camp. 93 thousand people were killed. On April 30, 1945, the prisoners of Ravensbrück were liberated by soldiers of the Soviet army.

Mauthausen - the concentration camp was created in July 1938, 4 km from Mauthausen (Austria) as a branch of the Dachau concentration camp. Since March 1939 - an independent camp. In 1940 it was merged with the Gusen concentration camp and became known as Mauthausen-Gusen. It had about 50 branches scattered throughout the former Austria (Ostmark). During the existence of the camp (until May 1945), there were about 335 thousand people from 15 countries. According to surviving records alone, more than 122 thousand people were killed in the camp, including more than 32 thousand Soviet citizens. The camp was liberated on May 5, 1945 by American troops.

After the war, on the site of Mauthausen, 12 states, including the Soviet Union, created a memorial museum and erected monuments to those who died in the camp.

The Second World War in Photos, Part 10: Internment of the Japanese in the USA
World War II in photos, Part 11: The Battle of Midway and the Aleutian Operation
World War II in Photos, Part 12: North African Campaign
World War II in Photos, Part 13: Women at War
World War II in photos, Part 14: Eastern European Front
World War II in Photos, Part 15: Pacific Theater of Operations
World War II in photos, Part 16: The Allied invasion of Europe
World War II in photos, Part 17: The Fall of Nazi Germany

The expression “Lebensunwertes Leben” or “a life not worth living” is considered one of the most horrific in human history. This term was used by Nazi Germany to identify people whose lives were of no value and who should be killed without delay. At first this definition was applied to people with mental disorders, and then to “racially inferior” people, people of non-traditional sexual orientation or simply “enemies of the state” both within the country and abroad.

At the beginning of the war, the Nazis aimed at mass executions of civilians, especially Jews, which then escalated into plans for their complete extermination. In the east, death squads, the Einsatzgruppen, operated, which killed about 1 million people, then the construction of concentration camps began, where prisoners were starved and denied medical care, and, finally, death camps - government institutions, the sole purpose of which was systematic extermination a huge number of people. In 1945, when advancing Allied forces began to find these camps, they were exposed to the terrible consequences of this policy: hundreds of thousands of hungry and sick prisoners locked in rooms with thousands of decomposing bodies, gas chambers, crematoria, thousands of mass graves, documents describing horrific medical experiments and much more. In this way, the Nazis exterminated more than 10 million people, including 6 million Jews.

Warning: Almost all photographs in this photo report show the bodies of people who died as a result of Nazi repression. This is the reality of genocide and one of the most important episodes of the Second World War and the history of mankind in general.

1. German soldiers accompany a group of Jews, including a small boy, in the Warsaw ghetto, April 19, 1943. This photograph was included in SS Gruppenführer Stroop's report to his military commander and was used as evidence in the Nuremberg war crimes case in 1945. (AP Photo) # .

2. An exhausted 18-year-old Soviet girl looks into the camera during the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp in 1945. The first German concentration camp, Dachau, opened in 1933. Between 1933 and 1945, more than 200 thousand prisoners were held here. According to official data, 31,591 of these prisoners died from disease, malnutrition or committed suicide. Unlike Auschwitz, Dachau was not an extermination camp, but its conditions were so terrible that hundreds of people died there every week. (Eric Schwab/AFP/Getty Images) # .

3. In a photo provided by the Paris Holocaust Memorial, a German soldier takes aim at a Ukrainian Jew during a mass execution in Vinnitsa, Ukraine, between 1941 and 1943. This photo is called “The Last Jew of Vinnitsa.” The text was written on the back of a photograph that was found in an album that belonged to a German soldier. (AP Photo/USHMM/LOC) # .

4. German soldiers interrogate Jews after the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943. In October 1940, the Germans began moving more than 3 million Polish Jews into overcrowded ghettos. Thousands of Jews died of disease and starvation in the Warsaw Ghetto even before the Nazis began mass deportations from the ghetto to the Treblinka extermination camp. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, which was the first urban revolt against the Nazi occupation of Europe, took place from April 19 to May 16, 1943, and began when German soldiers entered the ghetto to deport its surviving inhabitants. German troops crushed the uprising of poorly armed Jews. (OFF/AFP/Getty Images) # .

5. A man takes the bodies of Jews from the Warsaw ghetto, where people were dying in the streets from hunger, 1943. Every day at 4-5 am, carts removed several dozen corpses from the streets. The bodies of dead Jews were burned in deep pits. (AFP/Getty Images) # .

6. After the uprising, the Warsaw ghetto was liquidated. 7 of the more than 56 thousand Jews captured were shot, and the rest were sent to death camps or concentration camps. In the photo: the ruins of a ghetto destroyed by SS soldiers. The Warsaw ghetto lasted for several years, and during this time 300 thousand Polish Jews died there. (AP Photo) # .

7. A German in military uniform aims at a Jewish woman during a mass execution in Mizoche, Ukrainian SSR. In October 1942, the residents of Mizoch opposed Ukrainian auxiliary units and German policemen who intended to liquidate the ghetto population. About half of the residents were able to escape and hide during the unrest before the uprising was finally crushed. The surviving Jews were shot in the ravine. Photo courtesy of the Paris Holocaust Memorial. (AP Photo/USHMM) # .

8. Deported Jews in the Drancy transit camp near Paris, France, on their way to a German concentration camp, 1942. In July 1942, French police herded 13,152 Jews (including 4,115 children) to the Vel d'Hiv winter velodrome in southwestern Paris. They were then taken to the train terminal at Drancy, northeast of Paris, and deported to the east. Only a few of them returned home (AFP/Getty Images) # .

9. Portrait of Anne Frank from 1941, courtesy of the Anne Frank House Museum in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. In August 1944, Anna, her family and other people hiding from the German occupiers were captured and sent to prisons and concentration camps. Anna died of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp at the age of 15, but after the posthumous publication of her diary, Frank became a symbol of all the Jews killed during the Second World War. (AP Photo/Anne Frank House/Frans Dupont) # .

10. Arrival of a trainload of Jews from Carpathian Ruthenia, which was annexed by Hungary from Czechoslovakia in 1939, at the Auschwitz 2 extermination camp, also known as Birkenau, in Poland, May 1939. In 1980, Lili Jacob donated this photograph to the Yad Vashem memorial. (AP Photo/Yad Vashem Photo Archives) # .

11. Photos of 14-year-old Czeslawa Kwoka, provided by the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, were taken by Wilhelm Brasse, who worked as a photographer at Auschwitz, the Nazi death camp where about 1.5 million people, mostly Jews, died from repression during World War II . In December 1942, Polish Catholic Czeslawa, originally from the town of Wolka Zlojecka, was sent to Auschwitz along with her mother. Three months later they both died. In 2005, photographer (and fellow prisoner) Brasse described how he photographed Czeslava: “She was so young and so scared. The girl did not understand why she was here and did not understand what was being said to her. And then the kapo (prison guard) took a stick and hit her in the face. This German woman simply took out her anger on the girl. Such a beautiful, young and innocent creature. She cried, but could not do anything. Before being photographed, the girl wiped tears and blood from her broken lip. Frankly, I felt as if I had been beaten, but I could not intervene. It would have ended fatally for me." (AP Photo/Auschwitz Museum) #.

12. Victim of Nazi medical experiments conducted in the city of Ravensbrück, Germany, November 1943. The victim has a deep phosphorus burn on his arm. This burn is the result of a medical experiment conducted by doctors. During the experiment, a mixture of phosphorus and rubber was applied to the skin of the test subject, which was then set on fire. After 20 seconds the flame was extinguished with water. After three days, the burn was treated with liquid echinacin. After two weeks the wound was healing. This photograph, taken by a prison doctor, was presented as evidence during the doctors' trial at Nuremberg. (U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, NARA) # .

13. Jewish prisoners in the Buchenwald concentration camp after the liberation of the camp in 1945. (AFP/Getty Images) # .

14. American soldiers silently inspect the cars with the bodies of those who died on the railway at the Dachau concentration camp in Germany, May 3, 1945. (AP Photo) # .

15. An emaciated Frenchman sits among the bodies of the dead at the Mittelbau-Dora labor camp in Nordhausen, Germany, April 1945. (U.S. Army/LOC) # .

16. The bodies of the dead lie against the wall of the crematorium in the German concentration camp "Dachau" in Germany. The bodies were found by soldiers of the US 7th Army who entered the camp on May 14, 1945. (AP Photo) # .

17. An American soldier inspects thousands of gold wedding rings taken from Jews by the Nazis and hidden in the salt mines of Heilbronn, Germany, May 3, 1945. (AFP/NARA) # .

18. American soldiers examine the bodies of the dead in the crematorium oven, April 1945. This photograph was taken in one of the German concentration camps during its liberation by the American army. (U.S. Army/LOC) # .

19. A pile of ashes and bones at the Buchenwald concentration camp near Weimar, Germany, April 25, 1945. (AP Photo/U.S. Army Signal Corps) # .

20. Prisoners greet American soldiers near the electric fence at the Dachau concentration camp, Germany. Some prisoners are dressed in blue and white striped prison uniforms. The prisoners secretly made flags of all countries when they heard the approach of the 42nd Rainbow Infantry Division to the Dachau camp, and decorated their barracks with them. (AP Photo) # .

21. General Dwight D. Eisenhower and other American officers at the Ohrdruf concentration camp shortly after its liberation in April 1945. When the American army began to approach the camp, the guards shot the remaining prisoners. (U.S. Army Signal Corps/NARA) # .

22. A dying prisoner, already too weak to rise, fell victim to incredible cruelty in a concentration camp in Nordhausen, Germany, on April 18, 1945. (AP Photo) # .

23. Death march of prisoners from the Dachau camp along the Noerdliche Muenchner street in Grunwald, Germany, April 29, 1945. When the Allied forces went on the offensive, thousands of prisoners were moved from remote prisoner-of-war camps deep into German territory. Thousands of prisoners died along the way: everyone who could not withstand the road was shot on the spot. This photo shows Dmitry Gorky (fourth from right), born on August 19, 1920 in Blagoslovsky, USSR, into a peasant family. During World War II, Dmitry spent 22 months in the Dachau camp. The reason for his imprisonment remains unknown. The photo was provided by the Holocaust Memorial Museum, which is located in the United States. (AP Photo/USHMM, courtesy of KZ Gedenkstaette Dachau) # .

24. American soldiers walk past rows of corpses that lie on the ground behind the barracks at the Nazi concentration camp in Nordhausen, Germany, April 17, 1945. The camp is located 112 km west of Leipzig. When the camp was liberated, American soldiers found more than 3,000 bodies and a small group of survivors. (AP Photo/US Army Signal Corps) # .

25. A dead prisoner lies near a carriage near the Dachau concentration camp, May 1945. (Eric Schwab/AFP/Getty Images) # .

26. Liberation soldiers of the 3rd Army under the command of Lieutenant General George S. Paton at the Buchenwald concentration camp near Weimar, Germany, April 11, 1945. (AP Photo/U.S. Army) # .

27. On the way to the Austrian border, soldiers of the 12th Armored Division under the command of General Patch witnessed atrocities that were being committed in the prison camp at Schwabmunich, southwest of Munich. More than 4 thousand Jews of different nationalities were kept in the camp. The prisoners were burned alive by the guards, who set fire to the barracks while they slept and shot anyone who tried to escape. The photo shows the bodies of some Jews found by soldiers of the US 7th Army in Schwabmunich, May 1, 1945. (AP Photo/Jim Pringle) #.

28. The bodies of dead prisoners lie on a barbed wire fence at Leipzig Thekle, a concentration camp within Buchenwald, near Weimar, Germany. (NARA) # .

29. By order of the American army, German soldiers carried the bodies of victims of Nazi repression from the Lambach concentration camp in Austria and buried them, May 6, 1945. Initially, the camp housed 18 thousand prisoners. Each barracks in the camp housed 1,600 people. The buildings had no beds or any sanitary conditions, and every day between 40 and 50 prisoners died here. (AP Photo) # .

30. A man sits next to a charred body in the Thekla camp near Leipzig, April 18, 1945. On April 18, workers at the Tekla plant were locked in one of the buildings and burned alive. The fire claimed the lives of about 300 people. Those who managed to escape died on the barbed wire fence or were killed by members of the Hitler Youth. (Eric Schwab/AFP/Getty Images) # .

31. The charred bodies of political prisoners lie at the entrance to a barn in Gardelegen, Germany, April 16, 1945. They died at the hands of the SS men, who set fire to the barn. The prisoners tried to escape, but they were overtaken by Nazi bullets. Only 12 out of 1,100 prisoners managed to escape. (AP Photo/U.S. Army Signal Corps) # .

32. Human remains found by soldiers of the 3rd Armored Division of the 1st US Army in the German concentration camp at Nordhausen, April 25, 1945. (AP Photo) # .

33. When American soldiers liberated prisoners from the German Dachau concentration camp in 1945, they killed many SS men and threw their bodies into a moat surrounding the camp. (AP Photo) # .

34. Lt. Col. Ed Sayler of Louisville, Kentucky, stands among the bodies of Holocaust victims and addresses 200 German civilians at Landsberg concentration camp, May 15, 1945. (AP Photo) # .

35. Exhausted prisoners pose for a photo at a concentration camp in Ebensee, Austria, May 7, 1945. The Germans conducted “scientific” experiments in this camp. (NARA/Newsmakers) # .

36. A Soviet prisoner freed by soldiers of the 3rd Armored Division of the 1st US Army recognizes the former guard who brutally beat prisoners at the Buchenwald concentration camp in Thuringia, Germany, on April 14, 1945. (AP Photo) # .

37. The bodies of the dead lie on the territory of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, liberated by British troops on April 15, 1945. The British army discovered the bodies of 60,000 men, women and children who had died from hunger and disease. (AFP/Getty Images) # .

38. SS men place the bodies of the dead in a truck at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Belsen, Germany, April 17, 1945. British soldiers with guns stand in the background. (AP Photo/British Official Photo) # .

39. Residents of the German city of Ludwigslust inspect a nearby concentration camp, May 6, 1945. The bodies of victims of Nazi repression were found in pits in the yard. One of the pits contained 300 bodies. (NARA)#.

40. A pile of decomposing bodies was found by British soldiers at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Belsen, Germany, after the liberation of the camp on April 20, 1945. About 60 thousand civilians died, mostly from typhus, typhoid and dysentery, despite the efforts of doctors. (AP Photo) # .

41. Josef Kramer, commandant of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, sits in chains after his arrest in Belsen, April 28, 1945. Kramer, nicknamed the "Beast of Belsen", was executed after his trial in December 1945. (AP Photo) # .

42. Women SS unload the bodies of victims in a concentration camp in Belsen, Germany, April 28, 1945. Hundreds of prisoners died from hunger and disease. British soldiers with rifles (in the background) stand on a pile of earth that will be used to fill the mass grave. (AP Photo/British official photo) # .

43. An SS man stands among hundreds of corpses in a mass grave of concentration camp victims in Belsen, Germany, April 1945. (AP Photo) # .

44. Bodies of people who died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, April 30, 1945. About 100 thousand people died in this camp alone. (AP Photo) # .

45. A German woman covers her son's eyes with her hand as she walks past exhumed bodies near Suttrop, Germany. The bodies belonged to 57 Soviet citizens who were killed by the SS and buried in a mass grave shortly before the arrival of the American army. (U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, U.S. Army Signal Corps) #

The word Auschwitz (or Auschwitz) in the minds of many people is a symbol or even the quintessence of evil, horror, death, a concentration of the most unimaginable inhuman cruelties and torture. Many today dispute what former prisoners and historians say happened here. This is their personal right and opinion. But after visiting Auschwitz and seeing with your own eyes huge rooms filled with... glasses, tens of thousands of pairs of shoes, tons of cut hair and... children's things... You feel empty inside. And my hair is moving in horror. The horror of realizing that this hair, glasses and shoes belonged to a living person. Maybe a postman, or maybe a student. An ordinary worker or market trader. Or a girl. Or a seven year old child. Which they cut off, removed, and threw into a common pile. To another hundred of the same. Auschwitz. A place of evil and inhumanity.

Young student Tadeusz Uzynski arrived in the first echelon with prisoners. As I already said in yesterday’s report, the Auschwitz concentration camp began to function in 1940, as a camp for Polish political prisoners. The first prisoners of Auschwitz were 728 Poles from the prison in Tarnow. At the time of its founding, the camp had 20 buildings - former Polish military barracks. Some of them were converted for mass housing of people, and 6 more buildings were additionally built. The average number of prisoners fluctuated between 13-16 thousand people, and in 1942 reached 20 thousand. The Auschwitz camp became the base camp for a whole network of new camps - in 1941, the Auschwitz II - Birkenau camp was built 3 km away, and in 1943 - Auschwitz III - Monowitz. In addition, in 1942-1944, about 40 branches of the Auschwitz camp were built, built near metallurgical plants, factories and mines, which were subordinate to the Auschwitz III concentration camp. And the camps Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II - Birkenau completely turned into a plant for the extermination of people.

In 1943, a tattoo of the prisoner's number on the arm was introduced. For infants and young children, the number was most often applied to the thigh. According to the Auschwitz State Museum, this concentration camp was the only Nazi camp in which prisoners had numbers tattooed on them.

Depending on the reasons for their arrest, prisoners received triangles of different colors, which, along with their numbers, were sewn onto their camp clothes. Political prisoners were given a red triangle, criminals were given a green triangle. Gypsies and antisocial elements received black triangles, Jehovah's Witnesses received purple ones, and homosexuals received pink ones. Jews wore a six-pointed star consisting of a yellow triangle and a triangle of the color that corresponded to the reason for the arrest. Soviet prisoners of war had a patch in the form of the letters SU. The camp clothes were quite thin and provided almost no protection from the cold. Linen was changed at intervals of several weeks, and sometimes even once a month, and the prisoners did not have the opportunity to wash it, which led to epidemics of typhus and typhoid fever, as well as scabies

Prisoners in the Auschwitz I camp lived in brick blocks, in Auschwitz II-Birkenau - mainly in wooden barracks. Brick blocks were only in the women's section of the Auschwitz II camp. During the entire existence of the Auschwitz I camp, there were about 400 thousand prisoners of different nationalities, Soviet prisoners of war and prisoners of building No. 11 awaiting conclusion of the Gestapo police tribunal. One of the disasters of camp life was the inspections at which the number of prisoners was checked. They lasted several, and sometimes over 10 hours (for example, 19 hours on July 6, 1940). Camp authorities very often announced penalty checks, during which prisoners had to squat or kneel. There were tests when they had to hold their hands up for several hours.

Housing conditions varied greatly in different periods, but they were always catastrophic. The prisoners, who were brought in at the very beginning in the first trains, slept on straw scattered on the concrete floor.

Later, hay bedding was introduced. These were thin mattresses filled with a small amount of it. In a room that barely accommodated 40-50 people, about 200 prisoners slept.

With the increase in the number of prisoners in the camp, the need arose to densify their accommodation. Three-tier bunks appeared. There were 2 people lying on one tier. The bedding was usually rotted straw. The prisoners covered themselves with rags and whatever they had. In the Auschwitz camp the bunks were wooden, in Auschwitz-Birkenau they were both wooden and brick with wooden flooring.

Compared to the conditions in Auschwitz-Birkenau, the toilet of the Auschwitz I camp looked like a real miracle of civilization.

toilet barracks in the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp

Washroom. The water was only cold and the prisoner only had access to it for a few minutes a day. Prisoners were allowed to wash extremely rarely, and for them it was a real holiday

Sign with the number of the residential unit on the wall

Until 1944, when Auschwitz became an extermination factory, most prisoners were sent to grueling labor every day. At first they worked to expand the camp, and then they were used as slaves in the industrial facilities of the Third Reich. Every day, columns of exhausted slaves went out and entered through gates with the cynical inscription “Arbeit macht Frei” (Work makes you free). The prisoner had to do the work running, without a second of rest. The pace of work, meager portions of food and constant beatings increased the mortality rate. During the return of prisoners to the camp, those killed or exhausted, who could not move on their own, were dragged or carried in wheelbarrows. And at this time, a brass band consisting of prisoners played for them near the gates of the camp.

For every inhabitant of Auschwitz, block No. 11 was one of the most terrible places. Unlike other blocks, its doors were always closed. The windows were completely bricked up. Only on the first floor there were two windows - in the room where the SS men were on duty. In the halls on the right and left sides of the corridor, prisoners were placed awaiting the verdict of the emergency police court, which came to the Auschwitz camp from Katowice once or twice a month. During 2-3 hours of his work, he imposed from several dozen to over a hundred death sentences.

The cramped cells, which sometimes housed a huge number of people awaiting sentencing, had only a tiny barred window near the ceiling. And on the street side near these windows there were tin boxes that blocked these windows from the influx of fresh air

Those sentenced to death were forced to undress in this room before execution. If there were few of them that day, then the sentence was carried out right here.

If there were many condemned, they were taken to the “Wall of Death,” which was located behind a high fence with a blind gate between buildings 10 and 11. Large numbers of their camp number were written on the chests of undressed people with an ink pencil (until 1943, when tattoos appeared on the arm), so that later it would be easy to identify the corpse.

Under the stone fence in the courtyard of block 11, a large wall was built of black insulating boards, lined with absorbent material. This wall became the last facet of life for thousands of people sentenced to death by the Gestapo court for unwillingness to betray their homeland, attempted escape and political “crimes.”

Fibers of death. The condemned were shot by the reportfuehrer or members of the political department. For this, they used a small-caliber rifle so as not to attract too much attention with the sounds of shots. After all, very close there was a stone wall, behind which there was a highway.

The Auschwitz camp had a whole system of punishments for prisoners. It can also be called one of the fragments of their deliberate destruction. The prisoner was punished for picking an apple or finding a potato in a field, relieving himself while working, or for working too slowly. One of the most terrible places of punishment, often leading to the death of a prisoner, was one of the basements of building 11. Here in the back room there were four narrow vertical sealed punishment cells measuring 90x90 centimeters in perimeter. Each of them had a door with a metal bolt at the bottom.

The person being punished was forced to squeeze inside through this door and it was bolted. A person could only be standing in this cage. So he stood there without food or water for as long as the SS men wanted. Often this was the last punishment in the life of a prisoner.

Sending punished prisoners to standing cells

In September 1941, the first attempt was made to mass exterminate people using gas. About 600 Soviet prisoners of war and about 250 sick prisoners from the camp hospital were placed in small batches in sealed cells in the basement of the 11th building.

Copper pipelines with valves were already installed along the walls of the chambers. Gas flowed through them into the chambers...

The names of the exterminated people were entered into the "Day Status Book" of the Auschwitz camp

Lists of people sentenced to death by the extraordinary police court

Found notes left by those sentenced to death on scraps of paper

In Auschwitz, in addition to adults, there were also children who were sent to the camp along with their parents. These were the children of Jews, Gypsies, as well as Poles and Russians. Most Jewish children died in gas chambers immediately after arriving at the camp. The rest, after a strict selection, were sent to a camp where they were subject to the same strict rules as adults.

Children were registered and photographed in the same way as adults and designated as political prisoners.

One of the most terrible pages in the history of Auschwitz were medical experiments by SS doctors. Including over children. For example, Professor Karl Clauberg, in order to develop a quick method of biological destruction of the Slavs, conducted sterilization experiments on Jewish women in building No. 10. Dr. Josef Mengele conducted experiments on twin children and children with physical disabilities as part of genetic and anthropological experiments. In addition, various kinds of experiments were carried out at Auschwitz using new drugs and preparations, toxic substances were rubbed into the epithelium of prisoners, skin transplants were carried out, etc.

Conclusion on the results of X-rays carried out during the experiments with the twins by Dr. Mengele.

Letter from Heinrich Himmler in which he orders a series of sterilization experiments to begin

Cards of recording anthropometric data of experimental prisoners as part of Dr. Mengele's experiments.

Pages of the register of the dead, which contain the names of 80 boys who died after injections of phenol as part of medical experiments

List of released prisoners placed in a Soviet hospital for treatment

In the autumn of 1941, a gas chamber using Zyklon B gas began operating in the Auschwitz camp. It was produced by the Degesch company, which received about 300 thousand marks of profit from the sale of this gas during the period 1941-1944. To kill 1,500 people, according to Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Hoess, about 5-7 kg of gas was needed.

After the liberation of Auschwitz, a huge number of used Zyklon B cans and cans with unused contents were found in the camp warehouses. During the period 1942-1943, according to documents, about 20 thousand kg of Zyklon B crystals were delivered to Auschwitz alone.

Most Jews doomed to death arrived in Auschwitz-Birkenau with the conviction that they were being taken “for settlement” to eastern Europe. This was especially true for Jews from Greece and Hungary, to whom the Germans even sold non-existent building plots and lands or offered work in fictitious factories. That is why people sent to the camp for extermination often brought with them the most valuable things, jewelry and money.

Upon arrival at the unloading platform, all things and valuables were taken from people, SS doctors selected the deported people. Those who were declared unable to work were sent to gas chambers. According to the testimony of Rudolf Hoess, there were about 70-75% of those who arrived.

Items found in Auschwitz warehouses after the liberation of the camp

Model of the gas chamber and crematorium II of Auschwitz-Birkenau. People were convinced that they were being sent to a bathhouse, so they looked relatively calm.

Here, prisoners are forced to take off their clothes and are moved to the next room, which simulates a bathhouse. There were shower holes under the ceiling through which no water ever flowed. About 2,000 people were brought into a room of about 210 square meters, after which the doors were closed and gas was supplied to the room. People died within 15-20 minutes. The gold teeth of the dead were pulled out, rings and earrings were removed, and women's hair was cut off.

After this, the corpses were transported to the crematorium ovens, where the fire roared continuously. When the ovens overflowed or when the pipes were damaged from overload, the bodies were destroyed in the burning areas behind the crematoria. All these actions were carried out by prisoners belonging to the so-called Sonderkommando group. At the peak of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, its number was about 1,000 people.

A photograph taken by one of the Sonderkommando members, which shows the process of burning dead people.

In the Auschwitz camp, the crematorium was located outside the camp fence. Its largest room was the morgue, which was converted into a temporary gas chamber.

Here, in 1941 and 1942, Soviet prisoners of war and Jews from the ghettos located in Upper Silesia were exterminated.

In the second hall there were three double ovens, in which up to 350 bodies were burned during the day.

One retort held 2-3 corpses.

These photographs show the life and martyrdom of Nazi concentration camp prisoners. Some of these photos can be emotionally traumatizing. Therefore, we ask children and mentally unstable people to refrain from viewing these photographs.

Liberated prisoners of an Austrian concentration camp in an American military hospital.

Clothes of concentration camp prisoners abandoned after liberation in April 1945/

American soldiers inspect the site of the mass execution of 250 Polish and French prisoners at a concentration camp near Leipzig on April 19, 1945.

A Ukrainian girl released from a concentration camp in Salzburg (Austria) cooks food on a small stove.

Prisoners of the Flossenburg concentration camp after liberation by the 97th Infantry Division of the US Army in May 1945. The emaciated prisoner in the center - a 23-year-old Czech - is sick with dysentery.

Prisoners of the Ampfing concentration camp after liberation.

View of the Grini concentration camp in Norway.

Soviet prisoners in the Lamsdorf concentration camp (Stalag VIII-B, now the Polish village of Lambinowice.

The bodies of executed SS guards at observation tower "B" of the Dachau concentration camp.

View of the barracks of the Dachau concentration camp.

Soldiers of the 45th American Infantry Division show teenagers from the Hitler Youth the bodies of prisoners in a carriage at the Dachau concentration camp.

View of the Buchenwald barracks after the liberation of the camp.

American generals George Patton, Omar Bradley and Dwight Eisenhower at the Ohrdruf concentration camp near the fireplace where the Germans burned the bodies of prisoners.

Soviet prisoners of war in the Stalag XVIII concentration camp.

Soviet prisoners of war eat in the Stalag XVIII concentration camp.

Soviet prisoners of war near the barbed wire of the Stalag XVIII concentration camp.

A Soviet prisoner of war near the barracks of the Stalag XVIII concentration camp.

British prisoners of war on the stage of the theater of the Stalag XVIII concentration camp.

Captured British corporal Eric Evans with three comrades on the territory of the Stalag XVIII concentration camp.

Burnt bodies of prisoners of the Ohrdruf concentration camp.

The bodies of prisoners of the Buchenwald concentration camp.

Women from the SS guards of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp unload the corpses of prisoners. Women from the SS guards of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp unload the corpses of prisoners for burial in a mass grave. They were attracted to this work by the allies who liberated the camp. Around the ditch is a convoy of English soldiers. As a punishment, former guards are prohibited from wearing gloves to expose them to the risk of contracting typhus.

Six British prisoners on the territory of the Stalag XVIII concentration camp.

Soviet prisoners talk with a German officer in the Stalag XVIII concentration camp.

Soviet prisoners of war change clothes in the Stalag XVIII concentration camp.

Group photo of Allied prisoners (British, Australians and New Zealanders) at the Stalag XVIII concentration camp.

An orchestra of Allied prisoners (Australians, British and New Zealanders) on the territory of the Stalag XVIII concentration camp.

Captured Allied soldiers play the game Two Up for cigarettes on the grounds of the Stalag 383 concentration camp.

Two British prisoners near the wall of the barracks of the Stalag 383 concentration camp.

A German soldier guard at the market of the Stalag 383 concentration camp, surrounded by Allied prisoners.

Group photo of Allied prisoners at Stalag 383 concentration camp on Christmas Day 1943.

Barracks of the Vollan concentration camp in the Norwegian city of Trondheim after liberation.

A group of Soviet prisoners of war outside the gates of the Norwegian concentration camp Falstad after liberation.

SS Oberscharführer Erich Weber on vacation in the commandant's quarters of the Norwegian concentration camp Falstad.

The commandant of the Norwegian concentration camp Falstad, SS Hauptscharführer Karl Denk (left) and SS Oberscharführer Erich Weber (right) in the commandant's room.

Five liberated prisoners of the Falstad concentration camp at the gate.

Prisoners of the Norwegian concentration camp Falstad on vacation during a break between working in the field.

Employee of the Falstad concentration camp, SS Oberscharführer Erich Weber

SS non-commissioned officers K. Denk, E. Weber and Luftwaffe sergeant major R. Weber with two women in the commandant's room of the Norwegian concentration camp Falstad.

An employee of the Norwegian concentration camp Falstad, SS Oberscharführer Erich Weber, in the kitchen of the commandant's house.

Soviet, Norwegian and Yugoslav prisoners of the Falstad concentration camp on vacation at a logging site.

The head of the women's block of the Norwegian concentration camp Falstad, Maria Robbe, with policemen at the gates of the camp.

A group of Soviet prisoners of war on the territory of the Norwegian concentration camp Falstad after liberation.

Seven guards of the Norwegian concentration camp Falstad (Falstad) at the main gate.

Panorama of the Norwegian concentration camp Falstad after liberation.

Black French prisoners in the Frontstalag 155 camp in the village of Lonvik.

Black French prisoners wash clothes in the Frontstalag 155 camp in the village of Lonvik.

Participants of the Warsaw Uprising from the Home Army in a concentration camp barracks near the German village of Oberlangen.

The body of a shot SS guard in a canal near the Dachau concentration camp

A column of prisoners from the Norwegian concentration camp Falstad passes in the courtyard of the main building.

Liberated children, prisoners of the Auschwitz concentration camp (Auschwitz) show camp numbers tattooed on their arms.

Train tracks leading to the Auschwitz concentration camp.

An exhausted Hungarian prisoner freed from the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

A released prisoner of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp who fell ill with typhus in one of the camp barracks.

A group of children liberated from the Auschwitz concentration camp. In total, about 7,500 people were liberated from the camp, including children. The Germans managed to transport about 50 thousand prisoners from Auschwitz to other camps before the approach of the Red Army.

Prisoners demonstrate the process of destroying corpses in the crematorium of the Dachau concentration camp.

Captured Red Army soldiers who died from hunger and cold. The prisoner of war camp was located in the village of Bolshaya Rossoshka near Stalingrad.

The body of a guard at the Ohrdruf concentration camp, killed by prisoners or American soldiers.

Prisoners in a barracks at the Ebensee concentration camp.

Irma Grese and Josef Kramer in the courtyard of a prison in the German city of Celle. The head of the labor service of the women's block of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp - Irma Grese and his commandant SS Hauptsturmführer (Captain) Josef Kramer under British escort in the courtyard of the prison in Celle, Germany.

A girl prisoner of the Croatian concentration camp Jasenovac.

Soviet prisoners of war carrying building elements for the barracks of the Stalag 304 Zeithain camp.

Surrendered SS Untersturmführer Heinrich Wicker (later shot by American soldiers) near the carriage with the bodies of prisoners of the Dachau concentration camp. In the photo, second from left is Red Cross representative Victor Myrer.

A man in civilian clothes stands near the bodies of prisoners of the Buchenwald concentration camp.
In the background, Christmas wreaths hang near the windows.

The British and Americans released from captivity stand on the territory of the Dulag-Luft prisoner of war camp in Wetzlar, Germany.

Liberated prisoners of the Nordhausen death camp sit on the porch.

Prisoners of the Gardelegen concentration camp, killed by guards shortly before the liberation of the camp.

The corpses of prisoners of the Buchenwald concentration camp, prepared for burning in a crematorium, in the back of a trailer.

Aerial photography of the northwestern part of the Auschwitz concentration camp with the main objects of the camp marked: the railway station and the Auschwitz I camp.

American generals (from right to left) Dwight Eisenhower, Omar Bradley and George Patton watch a demonstration of one of the methods of torture at the Gotha concentration camp.

Mountains of clothes of prisoners of the Dachau concentration camp.

A released seven-year-old prisoner of the Buchenwald concentration camp in line before being sent to Switzerland.

Prisoners of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in formation.

A Soviet prisoner of war released from the Saltfjellet concentration camp in Norway.

Soviet prisoners of war in a barracks after liberation from the Saltfjellet concentration camp in Norway.

A Soviet prisoner of war leaves a barracks in the Saltfjellet concentration camp in Norway.

Women liberated by the Red Army from the Ravensbrück concentration camp, located 90 km north of Berlin.

German officers and civilians walk past a group of Soviet prisoners during an inspection of a concentration camp.

Soviet prisoners of war in the camp in formation during verification.

Captured Soviet soldiers in a camp at the beginning of the war.

Captured Red Army soldiers enter the camp barracks.

Four Polish prisoners of the Oberlangen concentration camp (Oberlangen, Stalag VI C) after liberation. Women were among the Warsaw rebels who capitulated.

The orchestra of prisoners of the Janowska concentration camp performs the Tango of Death. On the eve of the liberation of Lviv by units of the Red Army, the Germans lined up a circle of 40 people from the orchestra. The camp guard surrounded the musicians in a tight ring and ordered them to play. First, the orchestra conductor Mund was executed, then, by order of the commandant, each orchestra member went to the center of the circle, put his instrument on the ground and stripped naked, after which he was shot in the head.

Two American soldiers and a former prisoner retrieve the body of a shot SS guard from a canal near the Dachau concentration camp.

The Ustasha execute prisoners in the Jasenovac concentration camp.

Holocaust: Horrible footage from concentration camps

Holocaust (from
English holocaust, from ancient Greek. ὁλοκαύστος - “burnt offering”) -
persecution and mass extermination of Jews and other peoples
in Germany during World War II; systematic
persecution and extermination of European Jews by the Nazis
Germany and collaborators during 1933-1945
years.
There are some very scary photos here.

Please children and
Not for the faint of heart.

Exhausted
An 18-year-old Russian girl looks into the camera lens during
liberation from the Dachau concentration camp in 1945.

German soldier
shoots Ukrainian Jews during mass executions in
Vinnitsa, Ukraine, between 1941 and 1943.


German soldiers
interrogating Jews after the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943
year

Man carries away
bodies of dead Jews in the Warsaw ghetto in 1943, where people
died of hunger in the streets. Every morning, around 4-5 am,
funeral carts collected more than a dozen corpses in the streets.

A group of Jews
including a little boy, escorted from Warsaw
ghetto German soldiers April 19, 1943.


After the uprising
in the Warsaw Ghetto, the ghetto was completely destroyed. From more
than the 56,000 Jews who were in it, about 7,000 were

Shot and the rest were deported to death camps
and concentration camps.


SS men
finishing off the executed Jews after the mass execution in
Mizocz, Ukraine. In October 1942


Jews
deported to Drancy camp near Paris, France, in 1942
year

Anne Frank
died of typhus at the age of 15 in Bergen-Belsen
concentration camp, her posthumously published diary

Made it a symbol of all Jews who died in World War II
war

Transportation of Jews
from the Transcarpathian region of Ukraine, included in 1939
composition of Hungary, in Auschwitz-Birken, extermination camp in Poland in
May 1944

American
soldiers silently inspect railway cars with the dead,
which were discovered
on the railway line in the camp
Dachau in Germany, May 3, 1945.

Frenchman sitting
among those killed in the Mittelbau-Dora labor camp, in
Nordhausen, Germany, in April 1945.

The bodies lie
dumped in the German concentration camp at Dachau,
Germany. The bodies were discovered by American troops
Seventh Army, who were admitted to the camp on May 14, 1945.

American
a soldier inspects thousands of gold wedding rings taken from
dead Jews and hidden in the salt mines Heilbronn, 3
May 1945 in Germany

American
soldiers look at people in the crematorium oven in April 1945
of the year.

It's a heap of ashes and
bones from 88 prisoners of war the result of one day in
Buchenwald concentration camp near Weimar in
Germany, April 25, 1945.

Prisoners from
Dachau concentration camp meets American soldiers
in Dachau, Germany.

General Dwight D.
Eisenhower and other American officers in a concentration camp
Ohrdruf, shortly after the liberation of the camp in April 1945
of the year.

Dying
prisoners who were victims of hunger and incredible
cruelty, in the Nordhausen camp in Germany on April 18, 1945
of the year.

Prisoners in
Dachau leads south along the Noerdliche Muenchner
street in Grunwald, Germany, April 29, 1945

American
soldiers walk row after row; corpses lie on the ground near the barracks
in the Nazi concentration camp in Nordhausen, Germany,
April 17, 1945.

Dead
a prisoner is in a train carriage at a concentration camp
Dachau camp in May 1945.


Lieutenant General George S. Patton, commander of the 3rd Army
XX Corps, during the liberation of Buchenwald,

Concentration camp near Weimar, Germany, 11
April 1945

Huge
number of dead found in German camp in
Schwabmunchen southwest of Munich.

Dead body
prisoner lies on a barbed wire fence in
Leipzig-Thekla, south of the Buchenwald camp, near Weimar,
Germany


Those killed from the camp
Lambach in Austria, May 6, 1945

Young man
sitting on an overturned chair next to a burnt corpse in the camp
Flowed near Leipzig in April 1945.

Burnt organs
political prisoners lie scattered near the entrance to
barn on Gardelegen, Germany, April 16, 1945

Died from
hunger in the German concentration camp in Nordhausen 25
April 1945

When
American troops freed prisoners at the Dachau camp,
Germany, in 1945, many German SS guards were
killed by prisoners who threw their bodies into a ditch,
surrounding camp

Lieutenant Colonel Ed
Seiller in Louisville, Kentucky, stands amidst a pile of victims.
Holocaust, Landsberg concentration camp, May 15, 1945
of the year.

Hungry
prisoners nearly starved to death in a concentration camp in
Ebensee, Austria, May 7, 1945.

Russian prisoner
liberated by the American 1st 3rd Armored Division
army, identifies a former camp guard who brutally
beat prisoners on April 14, 1945 in a concentration camp
Camp Buchenwald in Thuringia, Germany

Dumped corpses
in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp after British troops
The camp was liberated on April 15, 1945. The British discovered
60,000 men, women and children died from hunger and disease.

German troops
The SS load victims of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp into trucks for
burial, in Belsen, Germany, April 17, 1945, under
convoy of British soldiers.

Citizens of the city
Ludwigslust, Germany, bypass nearby concentration camps
by order of the 82nd US Airborne Division on May 6
1945.

A pile of bodies
left to rot in Bergen-Belsen, in Bergen, Germany, this
discovered after the camp was liberated by the British
troops on April 20, 1945

Joseph Kramer,
Commandant of Bergen-Belsen after his arrest. photographed
April 28, 1945. He was subsequently executed.

German women
former SS officers dump the bodies of their victims from
cars to a mass grave. Concentration camp in Belsen, Germany, April 28, 1945.

German SS
a guard standing in the middle of hundreds of corpses drags the victim's body
concentration camp in a mass grave in Belsen, Germany, in
April 1945

Piles of dead in
Bergen-Belsen concentration camps April 30, 1945


A German woman covers her son's eyes with her hand so that he
did not see the dead bodies of 57 Russian soldiers who were killed
SS troops and thrown into a mass grave before arriving
American army.