|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Click on an image to see a larger, more detailed picture.
|
|
|
|
|
| 1945: Liberation and Rebuilding |
|
pg. 618 |
|
|
|
|
| |
On May 3, a few days after Hitler's suicide, the Czechs of Prague rose against their German overlords. Wehrmacht troops inside the city threw back the civilian resisters for three days. Then, on May 6, the collaborationist Russian National Liberation Army commanded by General Andrei Vlasov turned on its German comrades, assuring that the German forces could not hold the city. German troops inside Prague began a retreat, and on May 9 the city was entered by Soviet forces. Many Czechs were wounded and about 2000 gave their lives during the uprising.
Photo: Main Commission for the Investigation of Nazi War Crimes/United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archive
|
On May 6, 1945, the U.S. Third Army liberated a camp at Ebensee in Austria. These survivors had obviously suffered from months, if not years, of starvation rations. One soldier remembered that "the living that were walking around were so gaunt; their heads were shaven; they had sores on their bodies. Some were walking about naked in a daze. Others had blankets wrapped around them, held together by a belt, and their facial features were normal size but everything else was completely out of proportion."
Photo: Corbis-Bettmann
|
Like millions across Europe and North America, Americans celebrate V-E (Victory in Europe) Day on May 8, 1945, in Times Square in New York City. Behind them is a banner advertising the screening of the U.S. Army Signal Corps films about German atrocities.
Photo: National Archives/United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archive
|
|
|
|
|
|
May 2, 1945: Berlin is occupied by Soviet forces.
|
|
May 2, 1945: German troops in Berlin surrender.
|
|
May 2, 1945: German armies in Italy surrender.
|
|
May 2, 1945: The SS guards at the Neustadt-Glowen, Germany, labor camp near Lübeck fail to report for morning roll call, giving freedom to Jewish women who have been brought from Ravensbrück and Breslau, Germany, to dig defensive trenches and anti-tank ditches.
|
|
May 3, 1945: Approximately 9400 Jewish prisoners who had been evacuated from Neuengamme and marched to Lübeck, Germany, are loaded by their overseers onto two ships, the Thielbeck and the Cap Arcona, apparently for no other purpose but a Nazi hope that the Jews would die while on board. British planes, unaware that the ships are not hostile, attack. Both ships sink in the Lübeck harbor within 15 minutes. Survivors who attempt to swim to shore are fired upon by waiting members of the Hitler Youth, Volkstrum, and the SS. Of the 9400 prisoners, only about 2400 survive.
|
|
|
|
|
| 1945: Liberation and Rebuilding |
|
|
pg. 618 |
|
|
The Holocaust Chronicle
© 2009 Publications International, Ltd.
|
|
