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Survivors wrapped in blankets sit among the dead inside of a barracks in Woebbelin.

Photograph | Digitized | Photograph Number: 80045

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    Survivors wrapped in blankets sit among the dead inside of a barracks in Woebbelin.
    Survivors wrapped in blankets sit among the dead inside of a barracks in Woebbelin. The original Signal Corps caption reads, "NEW NAZI HORROR CAMP DISCOVERED. One of the worst Nazi concentration camps uncovered by Allied troops was liberated at Wobbelin, Germany, a small town five miles north of Ludwigslust and 90 miles northwest of Berlin. Soldiers of three Allied units -- the 82nd U.S. Airborne Division, the Eighth Infantry Division of the Ninth U.S. Army and airborne troops of the Second British Army -- entered the camp and found sick, starving inmates barely surviving under indescribable conditions of filth and squalor. They found hundreds of dead prisoners in one of the buildings while outside, in a yard, hundreds more were found hastily buried in huge pits. One mass grave contained 300 emaciated, disfigured corpses. The dead included Poles, Russians, Frenchmen, Belgians, Dutchmen and Germans, all of whom had been working as slave laborers for the Nazis. It is estimated that at least 150 of the original 4,000 prisoners succumbed daily, mostly from starvation and savage treatment at the hands of Nazi SS troops who operated the camp. Some of the bodies found were burned almost beyond recognition and systematic torture of the inmates was revealed by the physical condition of most of the survivors. Military Government officers immediately ordered leading citizens of nearby Ludwigslust and other towns to march through the camp and witness the atrocities committed by representatives of the German Government. Most of the civilians disclaimed any knowledge of the camp's existence despite the fact that many of the prisoners worked in the area. The local residents later were made to exhume the bodies from the mass graves at the camp and provide decent, respectable interment of all dead prisoners. Two hundred were buried in the public square of Ludwigslust May 7, 1945, and an equal number were buried in the garden of the highest Nazi official of Hagenow. Eighty more were laid to rest in the town of Schwerin. BIPPA EA 66648 THIS PHOTO SHOWS: Blanket-wrapped prisoners at the Wobbelin camp huddle near the body of a dead comrade in one of the buildings used as sleeping quarters. U.S. Signal Corps Photo ETO-HQ-45-45569. SERVICED BY LONDON OWI (?)LIST B. CERTIFIED AS PASSED BY SHA?F CENSOR."

    Overview

    Caption
    Survivors wrapped in blankets sit among the dead inside of a barracks in Woebbelin.

    The original Signal Corps caption reads, "NEW NAZI HORROR CAMP DISCOVERED. One of the worst Nazi concentration camps uncovered by Allied troops was liberated at Wobbelin, Germany, a small town five miles north of Ludwigslust and 90 miles northwest of Berlin. Soldiers of three Allied units -- the 82nd U.S. Airborne Division, the Eighth Infantry Division of the Ninth U.S. Army and airborne troops of the Second British Army -- entered the camp and found sick, starving inmates barely surviving under indescribable conditions of filth and squalor. They found hundreds of dead prisoners in one of the buildings while outside, in a yard, hundreds more were found hastily buried in huge pits. One mass grave contained 300 emaciated, disfigured corpses. The dead included Poles, Russians, Frenchmen, Belgians, Dutchmen and Germans, all of whom had been working as slave laborers for the Nazis.

    It is estimated that at least 150 of the original 4,000 prisoners succumbed daily, mostly from starvation and savage treatment at the hands of Nazi SS troops who operated the camp. Some of the bodies found were burned almost beyond recognition and systematic torture of the inmates was revealed by the physical condition of most of the survivors. Military Government officers immediately ordered leading citizens of nearby Ludwigslust and other towns to march through the camp and witness the atrocities committed by representatives of the German Government. Most of the civilians disclaimed any knowledge of the camp's existence despite the fact that many of the prisoners worked in the area.

    The local residents later were made to exhume the bodies from the mass graves at the camp and provide decent, respectable interment of all dead prisoners. Two hundred were buried in the public square of Ludwigslust May 7, 1945, and an equal number were buried in the garden of the highest Nazi official of Hagenow. Eighty more were laid to rest in the town of Schwerin.

    BIPPA EA 66648

    THIS PHOTO SHOWS: Blanket-wrapped prisoners at the Wobbelin camp huddle near the body of a dead comrade in one of the buildings used as sleeping quarters. U.S. Signal Corps Photo ETO-HQ-45-45569. SERVICED BY LONDON OWI (?)LIST B.
    CERTIFIED AS PASSED BY SHA?F CENSOR."
    Photographer
    A. Drummond, Jr.
    Date
    1945 May 05
    Locale
    Woebbelin, [Mecklenburg] Germany
    Photo Credit
    United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Arnold Bauer Barach

    Rights & Restrictions

    Photo Source
    United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
    Copyright: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
    Provenance: Arnold Bauer Barach
    Source Record ID: Collections: 1989.27
    National Archives and Records Administration, College Park
    Copyright: Public Domain
    Source Record ID: 153-Case files 1944-49--box 313--file 12-639 to 12-646
    Imperial War Museum
    Copyright: Exclusively with source
    Source Record ID: EA 66648
    Second Record ID: U.S. Army Signal Corps Photograph
    Comite International de la Croix Rouge
    Copyright: Exclusively with source
    Source Record ID: 1535/35

    Keywords & Subjects

    Record last modified:
    2012-11-09 00:00:00
    This page:
    https:​/​/collections.ushmm.org​/search​/catalog​/pa10783

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