wwii KZ

Hey PortraitofWar followers! I recently acquired an incredible grouping of photographs taken by a US soldier during the liberation of a concentration camp/labor camp during the tail end of WWII. There’s not much to go by in terms of identifiable visuals, but there are images of German military officers marching in line to view the bodies, as well as a liberated person in front of a T28E1 US tracked anti-aircraft gun. Additional photographs show an American officer speaking to a line of US soldiers passing before a group of bodies.

Any thoughts or ideas? I hope to pass these on to an organization that can present and appreciate them, but I want to identify the material before doing so.

A liberated prisoner tries on shoes for the first time in years

The American T28E1

A German collaborator? Commandant?

German officers pass through the line

US officers speak

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US officers speak

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Casual followers of this blog will know that I never post photos of death or destruction. My main goal is to present historic photography in a way to help educate internet followers about the world of war. In this case I will post a photo that may be hard for some viewers to see. I have hundreds of photos of concentration camps in my collection, yet have never been moved to post any of the photos to the web.

This image called to me. The composition, the subject, the setting. It’s all there. A soldier snaps a shot at Dachau of a man holding the feet of his dead wife while his injured son watches on. A procession of armored division soldiers file by as this tragic event unfolds; the event captured through the lens of an unknown soldier of an unknown family. This scene was likely replicated tens of thousands of times at the tail end of the war.