Top Photo: Inmates waving a home-made American flag greet U.S. Seventh Army troops upon their arrival at the Allach concentration camp. Arland B. Musser. April 30, 1945. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration, College Park

As the war in Europe drew to a close, Allied soldiers liberated hundreds of Nazi concentration camps and sub-camps. The liberation of Nazi concentration camps and sub-camps happened unevenly, initially from the East by Soviet forces in mid-1944 and increasingly in early 1945, and then from the West by American and British soldiers in the spring of 1945. The scenes encountered by Allied soldiers exposed the full horror of Nazi crimes to the world. The scale of mass murder led to the creation of the new term "genocide" and the indictment of Nazi leaders before the International Military Tribunal or Nuremberg Trials.

The first Nazi camp liberated by the Allies was Majdanek, which the Soviet Red Army came upon on the night of July 22-23, 1944. The speed of the Soviet advance meant that most of the camp's infrastructure remained intact. Soviet and Polish investigators soon began documenting what they found, though the enormity of the Nazi inhumanity proved difficult to grasp.

As the Red Army advanced westward, the SS began evacuating prisoners from eastern camps, forcing them on long marches to prevent them from testifying or joining Soviet forces. Some prisoners were killed on the spot if they could not be evacuated. Many died on those cruel marches, made even more difficult by harsh winter conditions.

Auschwitz-Birkenau, a large complex where over 1.1 million people were murdered, was liberated by the Soviet Red Army on January 27, 1945 after the Soviets stumbled upon the camp during Operation Bagration. Before the Red Army arrived, the SS had forced 58,000 prisoners on death marches, during which approximately 15,000 people were killed. The SS also attempted to destroy evidence of their crimes by blowing up crematoria and setting warehouses on fire. Approximately 8,000 prisoners, mostly too ill to march, remained at the camp until liberation. The Soviet military and the Polish Red Cross set up hospitals to care for the survivors. Despite the findings, the liberation of Auschwitz received little press coverage initially, overshadowed by battlefield events and reporting on the Yalta Conference.

In the West, Ohrdruf, the first Nazi camp liberated by U.S. forces, was seized on April 5, 1945. Generals Dwight D. Eisenhower, Omar Bradley, and George S. Patton toured the camp on April 12. They found piled corpses, charred remains, evidence of torture, and extremely emaciated, skeletal survivors. The sights and smells were so horrific that Patton reportedly was sick. To counter future disbelief, Eisenhower requested that members of Congress and prominent newspaper editors be flown over to view the camps. Eisenhower also directed that American soldiers not in the line come see the camps; he thought the camps would make it clear to American soldiers what they were fighting against.

American troops would go on to liberate other camps, including Dora-Mittelbau, Dachau, Mauthausen, and Buchenwald. In all, 36 U.S. Army divisions have been designated as “liberating divisions” in that they arrived at a Nazi concentration camp or sub-camp within 48 hours of the initial Allied encounter with the camp locale.

Buchenwald, the first major concentration camp in Greater Germany to be liberated, was freed by the U.S. 6th Armored Division on April 11, 1945. The American soldiers were unprepared for the horrors that confronted them, finding nearly 21,000 prisoners who were emaciated and near death, along with evidence of torture, execution sites, and piles of bodies. American investigators began documenting the atrocities with help from former inmates. In addition, American commanders sometimes forced German civilians from nearby towns to tour the camps to confront what had happened.

Dachau was liberated on Sunday, April 29, 1945, by soldiers from three U.S. Seventh Army divisions: the 42nd Infantry Division, the 45th Infantry Division, and the 27th Tank Battalion of the 20th Armored Division. Fierce firefights occurred as U.S. troops approached. Near the camp, they found a death train with hundreds of corpses, and other atrocities inside the camp. Some soldiers, seeing the horrors, lost their composure and reacted violently, shooting some of the SS guards they found in the camp. The arrival of the U.S. Seventh Army was a moment of euphoria and deep relief for the prisoners. However, humanitarian challenges such as malnutrition and typhus epidemics persisted well after liberation.

Other camps liberated by American forces included Gunskirchen, a sub-camp of Mauthausen, where units like the 71st Infantry Division arrived on May 4, 1945. Members of the 761st Tank Battalion reportedly found 15,000 Hungarian Jews near death. Mauthausen itself was liberated by U.S. troops from the 11th Armored Division on May 5, 1945.

For many survivors, liberation was not only a dream come true but also a complex and difficult time. Many were too sick to leave immediately. Challenges included physical recovery, finding lost loved ones, leaving displaced persons camps, and rebuilding their lives, a process that took years.