NAZI CONCENTRATION CAMP - Ohrdruf Liberated April 1945

This is a Photostory of my father's visit to a Nazi death camp (Ordruf Concentration Camp) Germany shortly after it was liberated in April 1945. It is accompanied with excerpts from a letter he wrote to his wife Winona after returning to camp.

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[atfdmike]

My father was one soldeier in Pattons Headquarter Company that overran the Ohrdruf camp and resulted in the exposure of the atrocities there. His image and that of his fellow soldiers now hangs in the National Holocaust Museum in Washington DC. It is the first image you see when you step out of the elevators to begin the tour. Ohrdruf in all its ugliness and inhumanity! God Bless all the men and women who serve our Country!

[Warmmmtouch]

@atfdmike Very nice to hear from you. I was just in DC last month. Wish I had dropped by the Holocaust Museum. Will watch for the image when I visit again. My father was not present when Ohrdruf was overrun, but was among the many soldiers Eisenhower asked to witness the carnage.

[Warmmmtouch]

It would be interesting to hear them. Thanks for your comment.

[seven6pro]

I was just reading through my Dad's army papers and saw that his company "M" marched along the outskirts of Ohrdruf concentration camp in early April 1945. It said they saw no one in the camp but saw the burial pits outside it. This video brought that event home to me. Thanks for posting it. Your photo of your Dad brought back great memories for me. My Dad passed away in 2001.

[Warmmmtouch]

@seven6pro Your comment on the Ohrdruf photostory was very touching. Called my mom and read it to her. . . she practically cried. My Dad passed away in 2008. Wish he could have seen the video.

[Raul26320]

my dad was an inmate at this camp, and was always so thankful to the americans that liberated him, he was 22y.o.

[kazan188]

Edit "have looked LIKE if USA had been bombed".

[kazan188]

@MsTazzer

If there is something "to learn from it for the future", it is that it's not a good idea to bomb the communication ways of a country which have so many prisoners to take care of as Germany had in that time... ;-)

[kazan188]

These scenes comes from undeliberate starvation and typhus. Typhus is characterized by an extremely emaciated condition. And about starvation, Dr Russell Barton, a doctor who spent one month in Bergen Belsen (which offered more terrible views) with the British troops and found canteen registers, declared "I became convinced, contrary to the common opinion, that there has never been any deliberate starvation policy." (Dr R. BARTON, « Belsen », 1975, p. 3025-3029.)

[kazan188]

For those who really want to understand those scenes, watch the beginning of the video "A defeated people" on youtube, a British propaganda film where the winners proudly explain their last bombings had destroyed all German communications. How could a state take care of his prisoners and keep them healthy without any food and medicine deliveries? How would the Japanese prisoners jailed in the camps located on the American soil have looked if USA had been bombed? Probably like those of Ohrdruf...

[monkeyfeatherz]

My mother was an innocent 9 year old civilian in Ohrdruf directly across th railroad tracks from the camp......many...many stories.....

[seven6pro]

@Warmmmtouch - I'm so sorry about your Dad passing. I think of my Dad everyday and memories of him make me feel better. Another friend of mine marched that way before April 1945. He was an American prisoner of war and spent time in Stalag 13. He told me he saw Jewish prisoners marching as they came in. Very sad.