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German civilians remove corpses piled behind the crematorium of the Dachau concentration camp.

Photograph | Photograph Number: 19429
German civilians remove corpses piled behind the crematorium of the Dachau concentration camp.

German civilians remove corpses piled behind the crematorium of the Dachau concentration camp.

Date
1945 April 29 - 1945 May 05
Locale
Dachau, [Bavaria] Germany
Photo Designation
MAJOR CONCENTRATION CAMPS 1940-45 -- Dachau -- LIBERATION -- Victims -- Victims/Burial/Confrontation
Photo Credit
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Joseph Wyant

About This Photograph

Biography
Joseph Wyant was born in Greensboro, North Carolina and spent his youth in Atlanta, Georgia. He enlisted in the Army Air Corps shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, and was assigned to the Ninth Air Force. With the rank of second lieutenant, he served as a squadron adjutant in North Africa from 1942 until 1943, when his company was moved to England. There he served in the intelligence sector, first as a captain in the bomber squad and later as a major for the entire Ninth Air Force.

On May 8, 1945 he was sent with his brother Bill, an officer in the Seventh Army who was stationed nearby, to the Dachau concentration camp with instructions to photograph the camp. From there, he traveled to Berchtesgaden, Hitler's mountain retreat, where he continued to documents what he saw. In addition to his photographs, he also wrote a letter to his father describing the camp conditions, which was donated to the USHMM (1991.220). By August of 1945, he had been promoted to lieutenant colonel, and was among fourteen officers selected to chronicle the history of the Ninth Air Force throughout the war. Colonel Wyant was honorably discharged from active duty in 1946. [Source: The Skinnie Magazine, Early October 2005, p. 45.]

Keywords and Subjects

Rights and Restrictions

Photo Source
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Copyright: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Provenance: Joseph Wyant
Source Record ID: Collections: 1991.220
 
Record last modified: 2011-02-09 00:00:00
This page: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1066896