Which countries liberated the concentration camps

Once, the sprawling camp complex now known as Auschwitz was characterized by grim record-keeping and brutal order. With chilling efficiency , the architects of the Holocaust orchestrated processes of deportation, detention, experimentation, enslavement and murder.

Between and , approximately 1. Now, as Soviet troops marched westward through occupied Poland, the SS sought to dismantle their killing machine. But what came after the murders finally stopped? Leaving Auschwitz, however, did not mean the end of their ordeal. Instead, the SS ordered their charges into columns and marched them into the miserable winter.

At first, the prisoners went on foot, monitored by officers who shot those who fell behind or tried to stay behind. Malnourished and inadequately clothed, the marchers were subject to random massacre.

Eventually, they were shipped back toward Germany in open train cars. Up to 15, of the former camp inhabitants died on the death march. Back at Auschwitz, where by some estimates 9, prisoners remained, only a few SS guards maintained their watch. Most of the prisoners were too sick to move. Among the last acts of the SS were to set fire to huge piles of camp documents, a last-ditch effort to hide the evidence. A surreal quiet fell on Auschwitz in late January, a period filled with confusion and suffering.

Half of the prisoners discovered alive in Auschwitz died within a few days of being freed. Survivors had mixed reactions to their newfound freedom. While a few looked forward to being reunited with other family members, some felt guilty for surviving when so many of their relatives and friends had died.

Some felt overwhelmed, as one survivor, Viktor Frankl, a psychiatrist, expressed:. Then we ventured a few steps out of the camp. This time no orders were shouted at us, nor was there any need to duck quickly to avoid a blow or a kick.

July 23, Soviet forces liberate Majdanek camp Soviet forces are the first to approach a major Nazi camp, reaching the Majdanek camp near Lublin, Poland. Surprised by the rapid Soviet advance, the Germans attempt to demolish the camp in an effort to hide the evidence of mass murder. The camp staff sets fire to the large crematorium at Majdanek, but because of the hasty evacuation the gas chambers are left standing. April 11, American forces liberate Buchenwald camp US forces liberate the Buchenwald concentration camp near Weimar, Germany, in April , a few days after the Nazis began evacuating the camp.

On the day of liberation, an underground prisoner resistance organization seizes control of Buchenwald to prevent atrocities by the retreating camp guards. But in those warehouses that remained, Soviet soldiers found personal belongings of the victims. In the following months, Soviet units liberated additional camps in the Baltic states and Poland. Thus, as Allied troops launched offensives within Germany, they encountered tens of thousands of concentration camp prisoners. Most of these prisoners were suffering from starvation and disease.

Earlier that day before the arrival of US troops, an underground prisoner resistance organization seized control of Buchenwald to prevent atrocities by the retreating camp guards. When American forces arrived, they encountered more than 20, prisoners at Buchenwald. They liberated Mauthausen in early May. They entered the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, near Celle, in mid-April Some 60, prisoners, most in critical condition because of a typhus epidemic, were found alive.

More than 13, of them died from the effects of malnutrition or disease within a few weeks of liberation. Liberators confronted unspeakable conditions in the Nazi camps, where piles of corpses lay unburied. Only after the liberation of these camps was the full scope of Nazi horrors exposed to the world.

The small percentage of inmates who survived resembled skeletons because of the demands of forced labor and the lack of food, compounded by months and years of maltreatment. Many were so weak that they could hardly move. Disease remained an ever-present danger, and many of the camps had to be burned down to prevent the spread of epidemics.

Survivors of the camps faced a long and difficult road to recovery. An investigation indicated that a faulty electrical wire inside the Apollo 1 command module was the probable cause of the The Shelby GT , which featured a horsepower V-8 engine, remained in production through the end of the s and On January 27, , Soviet forces permanently break the Leningrad siege line, ending the almost day German-enforced containment of the city, which cost hundreds of thousands of Russian lives.

The siege began officially on September 8, The people of Leningrad began Sign up now to learn about This Day in History straight from your inbox. Forcefully marking the continued importance of the West in the development of nuclear weaponry, the government detonates the first of a series of nuclear bombs at its new Nevada test site. Although much of the West had long lagged behind the rest of the nation in technological