BODIES OUTSIDE THE CREMATORIUM AT DACHAU

 

BODIES OUTSIDE THE CREMATORIUM AT DACHAU

The bodies of former prisoners are piled outside the crematorium at the newly liberated Dachau concentration camp. Dachau, Germany, April–May 1945.

This image is among the commonly reproduced and distributed, and often extremely graphic, images of liberation. These photographs provided powerful documentation of the crimes of the Nazi era.

More From Dachau Concentration Camp

Dachau concentration camp was the first concentration camp established by the Nazis in 1933, shortly after Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany. It was located just outside the town of Dachau, about 10 miles north of Munich, and was intended to be a model camp that would serve as a template for future concentration camps.

Dachau was initially used to hold political prisoners, primarily Communists and Social Democrats, who were arrested by the Nazis in the early days of their regime. Over time, the camp expanded to include other groups, such as Jews, homosexuals, Roma, and Jehovah's Witnesses.

The Dachau concentration camp had a crematorium which was used to dispose of the bodies of prisoners who died from disease, starvation, or were executed. The original crematorium was built in 1940, but it was not designed to handle the large number of deaths that occurred at the camp. In 1942, a new crematorium was built which had four ovens and was capable of disposing of up to 1440 bodies per day.

It was a central part of the camp's machinery of death. Prisoners who were too sick or weak to work were often sent there to be killed, either by being gassed with carbon monoxide or by being injected with lethal doses of phenol. The bodies were then incinerated in the ovens, and the ashes were either buried in mass graves or scattered in nearby fields.

The crematorium at Dachau was also used to dispose of the bodies of prisoners who were executed, either by hanging or by firing squad. These executions were often carried out in public view, as a way of intimidating other prisoners and discouraging them from attempting to escape or resist.

Conditions at Dachau were brutal and inhumane. Prisoners were subjected to forced labor, starvation, and medical experiments, and were often subjected to torture and other forms of abuse. Thousands of prisoners died from disease, malnutrition, and outright murder. Despite this, Dachau remained in operation until the end of World War II, and became a symbol of the horrors of the Holocaust.