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The view of the electrified fences at the entrance at the Dachau Concentration Camp, was a sight that most inmates only saw once. The 3rd Infantry Division as well as other U.S. Army divisions, liberated many of the infamous camps, including Dachau and Mauthausen. My father spoke Yiddish, and conversed with the survivors as they told him their tales of horror.

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Dachau, Mauthausen, Struthof


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Electrified fences at the
Dachau Concentration Camp


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GI's marching alongside boxcars that transported victims to their death at Dachau.


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American soldiers talking with survivors,
while looking at victims.


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GI's staring at executed prison camp guards.


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Oven-Struthof Camp-
Schirmeck, France



Mounds of clothing taken from
concentration camp inmates.


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Struthof Concentration Camp, Schirmeck, France


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Bodies stacked up outside showers.


Photo courtesy of Denis Toomey www.dogfacesoldiers.org

 

Bill Heller's forte as a portrait photographer, was his expertise in comforting children while taking their photos. Knowing this, I asked him how he could stand being at the camps when the GI's freed the pitiable survivors that included so many children. He told me the shock of seeing these people paralyzed his nervous system, and it was after leaving the camps that the full effect hit him.

The horrendous stench of poor sanitation, dead, diseased, and burned bodies was more than most of the soldiers could tolerate. Bill had never seen people in such lamentable condition. Many of the GI's have tried to this day, to eclipse the memories of the Concentration Camps. Only now will many of them even speak about the horrors they witnessed.

     

When the inmates of the camps died, the starved and tortured prisoners were thrown into railcars for burial later. In their haste to flee the camps, the Nazis left the prisoners to fend for themselves.


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Child victims in box cars.


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After the liberation of the camps, those victims who could walk, hurried to the incoming soldiers begging for food and water. Some of the prisoners were angry at only receiving candy bars, as they wanted real food. It was only after the camps were secured that the Army brought in food.

My father and my cousin, Sgt. Sam Klein of the 3rd Calvary, which liberated the Ebensee Camp, saw firsthand about the Nazis inhumane treatment of their captives.


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Girl placing flowers on grandmother's grave


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Released American POW,
down to 75 pounds.


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Victim of Nazis' hurried departure from Colmar, France.

Until the Allies saw the camps,  the camps were treated as rumors. The US government never told the GI's even though they had intelligence from escapees and others, of the terror going on in the camps. But, for whatever reason, they did not announce this information to the people back home or the GI's until the facts became generally known .

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