Corpses of prisoners are seen at Buchenwald concentration camp after the liberation in April 1945. The construction of Buchenwald camp started 15 July 1937 and was liberated by US General Patton’s army 11 April 1945. Between 239,000 and 250,000 people were imprisoned in this camp. About 56,000 died among which 11,000 Jews. On the 4th of April Patton’s army liberated the Buchenwald sub-camp in Ohrdruf, where they only found about fifty corpses of prisonners. The 9000 Buchenwald commandos – hundreds of Polish, Russian, Yugoslavian, Italian and French, some Hungarian and Russian Jews, and gypsies – had been forced by the Nazis to march 80 km on April 2nd from Ohrdruf to the main camp Buchenwald. Most of them were evacuated again April the 7th to Dachau and Flossenburg. Much died during this ordeal. On the 11th of April the International Committee (created in August 1943 by the prisoners), who managed to obtain and hide arms during previous shelling, gave the order for an insurrection which pave the way for the US army.(FILM) AFP PHOTO ERIC SCHWAB
AFP PHOTO
