ublic perception
During the latter half of World War Two, there was present among western public opinion some indistinct awareness of the heinous crimes being committed by the Nazi Third Reich. And this perception was reinforced when newsreels reported the horrors discovered when the Soviets reached the German Majdanek and Sobibor extermination camps in eastern Poland, during summer 1944.
This understanding of the extent of Nazi brutality was considerably broadened in early 1945, after the Red Army liberated Auschwitz in south-western Poland. Auschwitz was one of six Nazi extermination camps, and was the last one still operating in the final months of the war.
... understanding of the extent of Nazi brutality was considerably broadened ... after the Red Army liberated Auschwitz.
The German regime had constructed the six sites containing gas chambers and large crematoria, with the genocidal purpose of annihilating Europe's Jewish population in what they called the 'Final Solution to the Jewish Question'. Of the estimated six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust, well over three million perished in these six camps.
The effect that these discoveries had on western public opinion paled in comparison with the impact exerted during spring 1945, when the American and British armies liberated the concentration camps located in western Germany.
The reality
These concentration and slave-labour camps, located throughout the Reich, were different from the extermination camps. Although the concentration camps were also places of appalling suffering and death, the authorities 'merely' incarcerated the inmates - political and religious prisoners, criminals, resistance activists, deserters, shirkers, and internees - at these sites, rather than exterminating them.
... living visions of hell, packed with starving, dehydrated, disease-ridden prisoners.
During the last months of the war, however, as the Allies advanced towards Auschwitz, the Germans force-marched or transported many of the camp's Jewish inmates by rail to other, already over-full, concentration camps. This redistribution of Jewish prisoners, when combined with the administrative chaos that had engulfed the Third Reich, led to some concentration camps degenerating further into living visions of hell, packed with starving, dehydrated, disease-ridden prisoners.
American army units were the first to discover such camps, when on 4 April 1945 they liberated the recently-abandoned slave labour camp at Ohrdruf, in Thuringia, Germany. Then, on 11 April, American forces liberated the camps at Buchenwald, near Weimar, and the V2 rocket slave-labour camp at Nordhausen in the Harz Mountains.
It was not until four days later, however, that the British army liberated its first such camp - Bergen-Belsen, located on Lüneberg Heath, 45 miles south of Hamburg. Subsequently, British forces would liberate other such camps, including Neuengamme, located near Hamburg.
The Nazis first created a detention camp at Bergen-Belsen for 8,000 foreign prisoners in 1943. And during late 1944 and early 1945, some 60,000 Jewish inmates from other concentration camps were transported to Belsen. These individuals had previously been evacuated from the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination and slave labour camp system.
During the latter half of World War Two, there was present among western public opinion some indistinct awareness of the heinous crimes being committed by the Nazi Third Reich. And this perception was reinforced when newsreels reported the horrors discovered when the Soviets reached the German Majdanek and Sobibor extermination camps in eastern Poland, during summer 1944.
This understanding of the extent of Nazi brutality was considerably broadened in early 1945, after the Red Army liberated Auschwitz in south-western Poland. Auschwitz was one of six Nazi extermination camps, and was the last one still operating in the final months of the war.
... understanding of the extent of Nazi brutality was considerably broadened ... after the Red Army liberated Auschwitz.
The German regime had constructed the six sites containing gas chambers and large crematoria, with the genocidal purpose of annihilating Europe's Jewish population in what they called the 'Final Solution to the Jewish Question'. Of the estimated six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust, well over three million perished in these six camps.
The effect that these discoveries had on western public opinion paled in comparison with the impact exerted during spring 1945, when the American and British armies liberated the concentration camps located in western Germany.
The reality
These concentration and slave-labour camps, located throughout the Reich, were different from the extermination camps. Although the concentration camps were also places of appalling suffering and death, the authorities 'merely' incarcerated the inmates - political and religious prisoners, criminals, resistance activists, deserters, shirkers, and internees - at these sites, rather than exterminating them.
... living visions of hell, packed with starving, dehydrated, disease-ridden prisoners.
During the last months of the war, however, as the Allies advanced towards Auschwitz, the Germans force-marched or transported many of the camp's Jewish inmates by rail to other, already over-full, concentration camps. This redistribution of Jewish prisoners, when combined with the administrative chaos that had engulfed the Third Reich, led to some concentration camps degenerating further into living visions of hell, packed with starving, dehydrated, disease-ridden prisoners.
American army units were the first to discover such camps, when on 4 April 1945 they liberated the recently-abandoned slave labour camp at Ohrdruf, in Thuringia, Germany. Then, on 11 April, American forces liberated the camps at Buchenwald, near Weimar, and the V2 rocket slave-labour camp at Nordhausen in the Harz Mountains.
It was not until four days later, however, that the British army liberated its first such camp - Bergen-Belsen, located on Lüneberg Heath, 45 miles south of Hamburg. Subsequently, British forces would liberate other such camps, including Neuengamme, located near Hamburg.
The Nazis first created a detention camp at Bergen-Belsen for 8,000 foreign prisoners in 1943. And during late 1944 and early 1945, some 60,000 Jewish inmates from other concentration camps were transported to Belsen. These individuals had previously been evacuated from the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination and slave labour camp system.
