On April 29, 1945, the U.S. Army ended the long nightmare at Dachau when it liberated 31,601 people from the concentration camp there. It was the first concentration camp established by the Nazis.
The camp was built just five weeks after Adolf Hitler became the Chancellor of Germany in 1933. Originally, it was used to imprison political opponents of the Nazis, such as Social Democrats and German communists. It was soon also used to hold “undesirable” elements of society such as homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Roma, and repeat criminals. Over time, however, it came to primarily be used to house Jewish prisoners.
The people held in the Dachau concentration camp were used as slave labor to make weapons and ammunition for the German Army. They were also used as guinea pigs in human medical experiments, killing or crippling many of them. Many others were simply executed. Still, others died of the inhumane conditions that prisoners were forced to live in.
As the Allied forces started to make inroads into Nazi Germany, prisoners in concentration camps close to the borders were sent to Dachau. Still, the Allies pushed on, eventually reaching the camp on April 29 after a brief battle with the few SS guards who hadn’t already fled. What they found there was something straight out of a horror movie. 30 railroad cars were filled with decomposing bodies. The survivors were severely emaciated, on the brink of death. The American soldiers were so horrified at what had been done to the prisoners of Dachau that they machine-gunned the captured German guards.
“The survivors were severely emaciated”? Looking pretty fit and well-fed in the pic.
I have toured Dachau twice. I have seen the pictures of the dead who died in the rail cars. The brutality is beyond my imagination and now the same is happening in the Ukraine and no country is willing to fight the Russians.
I can’t believe this is happening again and the U.S. government won’t help in the fight. I am ashamed of the cowards in our government.
We’ve visited Dachau and it made us literally sick. We drove most of that day speechless. Now during Trump’s horrible four years, we’re convinced that if he gets in the WH in 2024 we will be in the same position as the people there. Mass killings of Democrats, Jews, LGBTQ’s any one trump has revenge against could be killed.
This is so sad, and today history is almost repeating itself with the bombing and killing of the people of Ukraine. Now is the time we need Jesus more than ever, God gave us a beautiful planet and animals and people are just destroying it for their own satisfaction.
I commend the summary execution of the Nazi guards.
What is wrong with us humans? This atrocity never should have happened and yet it continues to go on today. Now it’s Russia trying to take over Ukraine. Hurler was finally done away with. Now Putin should get his just desserts.