German Woman Reacts to Nazi Horrors (1945)
The German World War II concentration camps are held as the standard of depravity and inhumanity to this day. Six million Jews, political prisoners, homosexuals, Gypsies and other ‘undesirables’ performed forced slave labor or were put to death. People living in the cities near camps would often claim they had no idea what was happening in their backyard. Allied showed them what happened to the victims after liberating the camps in 1945. The Allies made nearby residents face the results of the regime they supported. The photo, taken on May 17, 1945, shows a woman forced to march past the bodies of Buchenwald Death March victims near Nammering. Soldiers stand nearby as her face recoils in horror, whether from the odor or from the realization of what happened to these people. American forces would make citizens of Nammering dig mass graves for the victims.