Stutthof concentration camp was among the sites of horror caught up in this gruesome crescendo to Adolf Hitler’s war for racial supremacy.

The National WWII Museum today announced the official opening of its landmark hotel property The Higgins Hotel New Orleans, Curio Collection by Hilton.

Desperate for slave labor to continue the doomed war effort and fearful of camp survivors exposing Nazi crimes, German decision-makers put in motion nearly three-quarters of a million concentration camp prisoners. Of this number, 250,000 died in these death marches.

General Douglas MacArthur vowed to return to the Philippines in 1942—and more than two years later, he delivered on his promise.

How the strategic location of the diamond-shaped peninsula proved too much for the Germans.