Garand Picture of the day #116 Dachau Concentration Camp

[Mark in Rochester]

Moments after American soldiers executed SS troops in the coalyard at Dachau.

U.S. soldiers, shocked at what they discovered in the concentration camp, shot and killed a number of German SS guards as they attempted to surrender, including the crew of the Tower B. A group of four SS soldiers who having already surrendered to Lt. William P. Walsh were shot by him, and a soldier under his command, in a railway box car Walsh was outraged and shocked after seeing hundreds of dead bodies stuffed into a railway car. In another incident about twelve German POWs were shot and killed with another three or four wounded in a coal storage area. The officers and soldiers involved pleaded that the prisoners were trying to escape, but the United States official investigation into the incident cast serious doubt on this defence.


More here:

Dachau massacre - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Information

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[Danny]

Here are some pictures that I have scanned from visiting Dachau some years ago. I have a lot more, but they are film based images and not scanned.

Danny



Dachau City Sign:



Buliding containing offices and housing for the camp. In front of the building there is a memorial to the victims of the camp added post war:



The "new" and final crematorium:

[Tom Bowers]

Let's hope that our nation never forgets what can happen when the world looks the other way during the reign of tyrants. Europe certainly seems to have a very selective memory of the events 65 years ago.

[Danny]

Let's hope that our nation never forgets what can happen when the world looks the other way during the reign of tyrants. Europe certainly seems to have a very selective memory of the events 65 years ago.

I've been to Bergen Belsen as well but don't have scanned images of that. Unfortunately, there is not much left of that as was the case with Dachau. There is not much left at Dachau either, but there is still something, such as the Admin Building, the crematorium, the gates, the drainage ditches and the guard towers. The housing buildings (two or so of them) have been reconstructed post war. You might remember Bergen Belsen as being the place where Anne Frank perished. The British burned that place to the ground at the end of the war due to the rampant disease found in the camp. All that can be found there today are burial sites and a modern museum, and possibly some memorials, but I'm fuzzy on that one. You can walk through the property of the camp and now and then you'll see an artifact from the war such as a remnant of a prisoner's boot sole and part of the boot, etc. It's a very humbling experience to see these things.

Danny

[Sully]

I recall Dachau from a 1980 visit. That administration building had an SS torture yard in the rear of it...and just behind that was the sports field for the high school located next door. Talk about "never forget"!

My wife went to an elementary school by the name of "Target Range" and a high school named "Hell Gate", but it would be sad to go to a "Dachau High".

Some buildings at Dachau housed inmates who voluntarily stayed until as late as 1962, I believe as they had no other place to go. I suspect the Government paid that bill.

Very somber place, then, there was a convent located, added later, at the back of Dachau.

Thanks,

Sully

[mojalajab]

Auschwitz - Here is a recently discovered picture (left) of the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz. The smoke on the left-hand side of the picture is being produced by the mass burning of bodies in funeral pits. During the war's closing stages the camp's crematoriums were unable to burn all the people murdered by the Nazis.

Roll call - This is another picture of Auschwitz (right). Prisoners lining up for roll call can be seen in the photograph's center.

On missions to Germany, my father in-law's B-24 flew over some of the concentration camps and wanted desperately to bomb the camps so that the prisoners could have a chance to escape and survive. But, alas the AAF prohibited it.

[Carl R]

Revenge may be sweet but it is wrong even though the anger of the American troops would have been understandable. It would be interesting to know how those who did the killing faired later in life. If I had been there, though, I may have reacted the same way especially after long months of combat seeing your buddies wounded and killed.

If you can find the book We Were Next to Nothing by Carl Nordin it is well worth reading. Nordin was captured in the Phillipines at the start of WW II and was held by the Japanese until freed by US forces in Japan in 1945. It is a remarkable story because Nordin suvived it without bitterness. He went through a living hell. He tells of when they were freed one of his fellow prisoners went and killed one of the Japanese guards. This disturbed Nordin greatly. He eventually became the postmaster in the small town of Siren, Wisconsin, and my parents knew him personally. The fact that he was a Christian and devout Lutheran probably made the difference in his attitude. Carl

[John Sukey (Deceased)]

Consider shooting the SS guards as vermin control.
I have NO Sympathy for them

A british officer on walking through a camp they libersted, found hitler youth shooting the prisoners. He killed them until he ran out of ammunition and the rest ran off.

[53M1Grnd]

We are so Lucky!

My Mom's Father was born in Warsaw Poland and left early in WWI to flee to United States because of the Germans. My Dad's Father left Germany in WWI also as a child because of the Germans! Both Grand Fathers had to leave their countries because of the Germans. Both raised families here in the US.

One...Grandpa...the one from Poland signed up with the US ARMY during WWII to fight the Germans. He had seven children at home, but, still chose to fight. He went to Germany to fight and died in Luxembourg during the Battle of the Buldge. He fought proud!

I have no pitty for these people who were shot and left to lay against a wall. There are still many out there who have not yet been brought to justice!! God will lay down there justice !!!