they began to encounter tens of thousands of concentration camp prisoners.
Many of these prisoners had survived forced marches into the interior of Germany from camps in occupied Poland. These prisoners were suffering from starvation and disease.
first to approach a major Nazi camp
the Germans attempted to hide the evidence of mass murder by demolishing the camp
Camp staff set fire to the large crematorium used to burn bodies of murdered prisoners, but in the hasty evacuation the gas chambers were left standing.
The Germans had dismantled these camps in 1943, after most of the Jews of Poland had already been killed.
The Soviets liberated Auschwitz, the largest extermination and concentration camp, in January 1945.
Nazis had forced the majority of Auschwitz prisoners to march westward (in what would become known as "death marches")
There was abundant evidence of mass murder in Auschwitz.
Soviets found personal belongings of the victims. They discovered, for example, hundreds of thousands of men's suits, more than 800,000 women's outfits, and more than 14,000 pounds of human hair.
Some 60,000 prisoners, most in critical condition because of a typhus epidemic, were found alive.
More than 10,000 of them died from the effects of malnutrition or disease within a few weeks of liberation.
where piles of corpses lay unburied.
The small percentage of inmates who survived resembled skeletons because of the demands of forced labor and the lack of food,
so weak that they could hardly move.
. Survivors of the camps faced a long and difficult road to recovery
some indistinct awareness of the heinous crimes being committed by the Nazi Third Reich.
during summer 1944.
This understanding of the extent of Nazi brutality was considerably broadened in early 1945, after the Red Army liberated Auschwitz in south-western Polan
Auschwitz was one of six Nazi extermination camps, and was the last one still operating in the final months of the war.
'Final Solution to the Jewish Question'
six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust, well over three million perished in these six camps.
These concentration and slave-labour camps,
force-marched or transported many of the camp's Jewish inmates by rail to other, already over-full, concentration camps.
packed with starving, dehydrated, disease-ridden prisoners.
American army units were the first to discover such camps, when on 4 April 194
hen, on 11 April, American forces liberated the camps at Buchenwald,
It was not until four days later, however, that the British army liberated its first such camp - Bergen-Belsen, located on Lüneberg Heath, 45 miles south of Hamburg.
8,000 foreign prisoners in 1943.
And during late 1944 and early 1945, some 60,000 Jewish inmates from other concentration camps were transported to Belsen.
By 12 April 1945, British Army forces had advanced across Lower Saxony toward the Aller River.
13,000 Belsen inmates died after the camp was liberate
9,000 sick inmates, many of them with typhus, but neither water nor medical supplies
on 15 April the British took the surrender of the camp.
ermans had deposited in No.1 Camp over 60,000 prisoners,
These tormented prisoners had lived and, in many cases, died in Belsen, in appalling conditions of starvation, dehydration and lack of shelter.
these conditions made No.1 Camp a breeding ground for disease.
No.1 Camp, the liberators encountered scenes reminiscent of Dante's Inferno - a living example of hell on earth.
They discovered 20,000 emaciated naked corpses lying unburied on the open ground or in the barrack blocks.
Some inmates had literally starved to death where they lay, too weak even to drag their wasted bodies away from the typhus-infested corpses that surrounded them.
sickly-sweet stench of rotting human flesh
so overwhelming that it could be detected up to three miles beyond the camp walls
The camp had been without water for six days, after Allied bombing had broken its pump, although the guards had not attempted to gather water from a nearby creek.
around 50,000 'survivors'. With ribs protruding through taut dry skin, bellies distended, these shaven-headed 'living skeletons' lay or sat in their own filth on the open ground or in the tiered bunks of the camp's barrack blocks.
50,000 inmates still living, 20,000 were seriously or critically ill.
before disinfecting them with DDT powder.
13,000 Belsen inmates died after liberation.
the medical staff developed special nutritious but easily-digested concoctions for the inmates.
Another task was to dispose of the 20,000 diseased bodies,
ubsequently the bulldozers simply shovelled the corpses into the graves.
This apparent lack of the respect for the dead led to criticism, but it was a necessary expedient
Isaac Levy, a Senior British Army Jewish Chaplain, held a burial service as each mass grave was filled in.
In early April the third army advanced on the German cities of Gotha and Ohrdruf searching for Nazi communications. They found a labor camp
but the remarkable thing about this camp was that it was taken so quickly and without warning to the Germans
The brutality, torture, bestiality of the concentration camps where Jews, the handicapped, mentally ill, Gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals and political dissidents were used as slave labor and/or simply murdered could not be hidden anymore.
Germans failed to hide the truth.
4,000 inmates that had been murdered in the previous three months
hundreds who were shot on the eve of the American arrival.
Some victims were Jews, others Polish and Russian prisoners of war.
fled at our approaching attack and did not have time to kill the rest of the emancipated prisoners.
These prisoners, at our approach, rushed out of the gates waving their arms ecstatically at us as our vehicles entered the open gates of the camp.
Many prisoners, laid in their bunks too weak to move, but raised their arms in thanks
Bodies were piled high on the ground
There were rows of ditches filled with buried bodies with an occasional leg or arm protruding out of the ground. The stench was intolerable. It was a very gruesome sight. Many of our higher officers viewed this scene.
others were in pits covered with lime
Seeing this inhuman slaughter, the Burgermeister, his wife and many other town people took their own lives.
Many said they never knew, though a pungent odor drifted into town