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Headline

Yanks Find Murder Camp

6,000 Prisoners Too Ill To Work, Slain by Germans
Publication Date
Monday, April 9, 1945
Historical Event
Eisenhower Asks Congress and Press to Witness Nazi Horrors
This database includes 1,688 articles about this event
Tags
Gannett full page downloadable
Deportation and Mass Murder
Article Type
News Article
Newspaper
The Akron Beacon Journal
Location
Akron, Ohio
Page Section and Number
13
Author/Byline
UP
Article Text
OHRDRUF, Germany (Delayed) (UP)—Another wholesale Nazi murder camp, where scores of prisoners were shot when they became too ill to work, was discovered near here by Third army tankmen.

At one site they found 31 partly clothed bodies lying huddled grotesquely together where SS guards had killed them because they were too ill to be moved.

Nearby in a small wooden shed were stacked 50 or more naked things that once were men. Many were horribly bruised with scabs on their heads, and the whole pile had been sprinkled with lime.
* * *
SURVIVORS of the ghastly ordeal at the hands of the Nazis said these victims were only part of the estimated 6,000 men killed at the camp.

Approximately 4,000 were cremated and the ashes poured into great hole, while some 2,000 others were shot and their bodies buried in a huge pit a mile or so from the camp, according to several of the prisoners who had escaped.

Almost all the victims were Russians, Czechoslovakians, Poles, Frenchmen, German Jews and German political prisoners. They were beaten and tortured and when malnutrition prevented their doing a full days work they were killed.
* * *
ONE OF the victims a blond youngster lying on a stretcher with a hole in his neck, may be an American flier. That is what he told others in the camp, but he wore no identification tags and it was impossible to check his identity.

There atrocities were actually seen by U. S. army, officers, correspondents and—Germans.

Col. Hayden A. Sears, Newton, Mass., told the German civilians who viewed the scenes without muttering word they were to blame for the fiendish acts.
* * *
A GERMAN major, who also had seen the slaughtered bodies, replied that "this was done by a few people and you cannot blame us all."

"It was done by those that the German people chose to lead them and all are responsible," Sears answered. "Your names are being taken as witnesses so you can testify in trial if the persons responsible are apprehended."

The German major, a medical officer, had been shown the bodies by an American medical major, John R. Scotti, Brooklyn. When the German saw the bodies he said: "I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes."
* * *
BUT THIS town's leading citizens, the burgomeister and his wife, did not see the scenes today. They were found hanged inside their home. They had been taken to the camp before and apparently had committed suicide.

The SS guards cleaned out the camp several days ago when American tanks approached. The prisoners who could walk were taken along. Some others were put on trucks. But those who were too ill to travel either way were shot.
History Unfolded Contributor
Amy P.
Location of Research
Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com)

Learn More about this Historical Event: Eisenhower Asks Congress and Press to Witness Nazi Horrors

Bibliography

Abzug, Robert H. GIs Remember: Liberating the Concentration Camps. Washington, DC: National Museum of American Jewish History, 1994.

Abzug, Robert H. Inside the Vicious Heart: Americans and the Liberation of Nazi Concentration Camps. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985.

Bridgman, Jon. End of the Holocaust: The Liberation of the Camps. Portland, OR: Areopagitica Press, 1990.

Chamberlin, Brewster S., and Marcia Feldman, editors. The Liberation of the Nazi Concentration Camps 1945: Eyewitness Accounts of the Liberators. Washington, DC: United States Holocaust Memorial Council, 1987.

Goodell, Stephen, and Kevin Mahoney. 1945: The Year of Liberation. Washington, DC: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 1995.

Goodell, Stephen, and Susan D. Bachrach. Liberation 1945. Washington, DC: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 1995.

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