- Caption
- German civilians rebury the exhumed corpses of Russian prisoners.
Original caption reads: "German civilians place the exhumed body of a Russian prisoner on a white sheet of decent burial. The bodies of other victims lie enshrouded and covered with flowers in the background".
- Date
-
1945
- Locale
- Hanover-Wuelfel, [Prussian Hanover; Lower Saxony] Germany
- Variant Locale
- Hannover-Wuelfel
Wuelfel
- Photo Credit
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Ron Leidelmeyer
- Event History
- "Nazi SS troops shot over 200 Russian Army officers and enlisted men, prisoners-of-war at Wulfel, a suburb of Hanover. The victims were marching to Wulfel from their previous prisoner camp near Libenau, 50 kilometers from Hanover, as the Americans took the latter city. Twenty-five of the victims, including one woman, were forced to dig the graves before being murdered. During the proceedings, one of the group killed a German guard with a shovel, escaped into the woods nearby and heard the shooting as the Germans massacred his comrades in cold blood. The bodies were put into mass graves and hastily covered with earth. When troops of the 35th Division, Ninth U.S. Army took over the camp, German civilians and Nazi Party members of Hanover were ordered to witness and to participate in the exhuming of the bodies May 2, 1945. The Americans stood by to supervise as they dug up the victims and with bare hands, wrapped them in clean white sheets for decent burial near Hanover City Hall. Many of the dead were recognized by friends and relatives still in the area who witnessed the ceremony."
[original Signal Corps extended caption.]