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Click on an image to see a larger, more detailed picture.
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| 1945: Liberation and Rebuilding |
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pg. 585 |
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The Soviets, who had seen much suffering during the course of the war, were nonetheless horrified by what they discovered at Auschwitz. These Red Army troops stand among the tens of thousands of pairs of shoes confiscated from the victims of the camp.
Photo: State Archives of the Russian Federation/United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archive
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These children at Auschwitz, liberated by the Soviet Army on January 27, 1945, show their tattooed arms to the photographer. Everyone imprisoned in Auschwitz had his or her arm tattooed with an identification number. This served two purposes. First, it allowed camp officials to keep track of the thousands of prisoners in the camp. Second, making the inmates into nameless units served to dehumanize them, both crushing the spirit of the prisoners and making it easier for their guards to avoid facing the humanity of their charges.
Photo: Documentary Film Archives/United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archive
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These children, liberated from Auschwitz by the Soviet Army, had been subjected to savage "medical" experiments that they were fortunate to survive. Auschwitz doctor Horst Schumann sterilized men, women, and children by exposing them to extreme doses of radiation. He burned most of them so badly that they were deemed unfit for work and sent to the gas chambers. It is uncertain precisely what experiments these children underwent.
Photo: Yad Vashem
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January 12, 1945: Anti-Nazi German nurse Gertrud Seele is executed at the Plötzensee Prison in Berlin.
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January 12-14, 1945: A Soviet breakthrough is achieved on the Vistula River.
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January 14, 1945: The SS evacuates the remaining prisoners from the concentration camp at Plaszów, Poland.
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January 15, 1945: The concentration camp at Plaszów, Poland, is liberated by the Red Army.
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January 15, 1945: 152 Jewish women at the Brodnica labor camp near Stutthof, Poland, are murdered by their overseers. A few escape.
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| 1945: Liberation and Rebuilding |
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pg. 585 |
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The Holocaust Chronicle
© 2009 Publications International, Ltd.
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