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Click on an image to see a larger, more detailed picture.
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| 1945: Liberation and Rebuilding |
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pg. 594 |
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As the Nazi extermination camps in Poland were emptied of prisoners late in the war, Buchenwald and other established concentration camps to the west became receiving centers for many thousands of Jews. Twenty thousand arrived at Buchenwald between May 1944 and March 1945. Here, a young war orphan sits astride the running board of a truck belonging to the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. As they liberated Buchenwald, American soldiers found about 900 children, including this five-year-old. Along with children from Poland, Russia, and other countries, he awaits transportation to Switzerland.
Photo: U.S. Army Signal Corps/National Archives
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In April 1945 Heinrich Himmler, frightened at last by the Allied advance, ordered a halt to evacuations of concentration camps in the enemy's paths, and insisted that the camps be left intact for the liberators. Some guards were caught unprepared and had no time to escape before Allied troops arrived. Here, a Russian prisoner points out a Buchenwald guard who had brutally beaten prisoners.
Photo: UPI/Corbis-Bettmann
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February 15, 1945: The Red Army liberates the slave-labor camp at Neusalz, Poland; See March 19, 1945.
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February 17, 1945: Seven Jews, including a small orphan girl, are murdered by a Pole in Sokoly, Poland.
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February 23, 1945: Nazis evacuate the Jews from the concentration camp at Schwarzheide, Germany. The 300 weakest prisoners are sent in open wagons to the concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen, Germany.
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February 18, 1945: Five hundred Jews married to Christians are seized throughout Germany and deported to the Theresienstadt, Czechoslovakia, camp/ghetto.
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| 1945: Liberation and Rebuilding |
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pg. 594 |
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The Holocaust Chronicle
© 2009 Publications International, Ltd.
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