I’m interested in what happened at WWII concentration camps in Europe in the days, weeks, months immediately after they were liberated. I’m not asking for a full dissertation here (unless you’d like to), but if someone could point me to a source (eye-witness account would be great) I’d appreciate it. (I’ve tried Google and Wiki, but can’t quite find it.)
When one was discovered, the Allied troops couldn’t just open the gates and say “OK, you can go home now.” Many of the prisoners would need food, medical treatment, clothing, etc. before they could start being moved out of the camp. (Right?)
I’m looking for an account of a camp that details what date it was liberated, how many prisoners were inside, and then what happened to those people in the days and weeks immediately after. When did food arrive? (What was it? Extra C rations from the army?) How were they fed? When, and how, did they begin to receive medical treatment? Clothes? From the date of liberation, how long was it before they were able to leave? A day? A week? A month? How did they leave? In vehicles? Walking? Where did they go? (I realize the answers to these questions would be different for each camp.)
If you’re quick and go to the BBC Radio 4 website you might be able to listen to a programme they recently broadcast on this exact topic with regard to Belsen. Basically the thousands of people who didn’t have homes to return to were moved to a nearby barracks. This camp was closed in about 1950, though even then not everyone had anywhere to go except another camp.
Just one thing I recall that stuck in my mind (and sorry, no cite) was that the initial soliders were ordered not to feed survivors no matter how much they begged. It seems that many died from over eating/system shock in the first couple of camps and the medical teams were trained to slowly bring there digestive systems back to a healthy state.
I have one story from someone that was there as a young man in the 3rd army. So take it with a grain of salt as I’m relaying his story and he may have embellished or I might be messing up a detail.
I forget which camp he said they freed but he had no idea what the camp was until they got there. The Germans had surrendered and the US soldiers did everything possible to help the living victims at the camps. Food, clothing, spare boots, whatever they could fine and spare. He spoke of organizing games for some of the healthier kids. Soldiers carried those too weak out into fresh air and away from the camp. The soldiers were horrified by all they saw. He fought his way through part of France and Germany and had never seen anything as horrifying.
They got the story of the horror throughout the day. They found out what the SS had been doing. Apparently that night without any order from high up men tried rounding up the SS and failed. Every SS member in town resisted and was shot dead. I don’t know how true and accurate the details were but I always believed him. He had several other stories about being in the Third but nothing as horrific as this one.
Personally I found the story of the aid to the victims and cold blooded execution of those responsible to be a good one. He had a homesy way of telling his story. Far better than I. This was the same man that could talk about how to prepare Pine Barren muskrat so though a native of New Jersey; he was a real backwoods character. I wish I remembered more of his stories. That was the one that stuck. I worked with him about 19 years ago and I understand he passed away about 6 years ago.
My Grandfather wrote an essay on the time he spent in a displaced persons camp in Italy. If there isn’t a copy online already I will give him a call an have him place it on his website and link you there.
It talks about what it was like to be let out of the camp as a young teenager (I want to say he was 16 when he was released) and his time in the camp in Italy where he was, more or less, treated only marginally better than he was at the concentration camp.
There was a group of consciencious objectors who volunteered to participate in a wartime program where they were put on starvation rations for a period of months so the effects of long-term starvation and the best methods of helping its victims could be determined.
In some camps, local German townspeople were forced to walk through the camps so they could witness what had been happening near their homes.
Buchenwald, for one. I think that Patton gave the order to have civilians tour the camp, but I can’t find a cite. In any case, he was adamant about making multple layers of documentation regarding the camp and others nearby.
Some of the prisoners freed from concentration camps toward the end of and immediately after the war (including, incidentally, some surviving members of my own family) were moved to refugee camps in neutral Sweden.
My father was born in the Displaced Person camp in Landsberg, Germany. My grandparents had been in Auschwitz, and as of 1948, the year my dad was born, they were still trying to figure out what to do. It took until 1952 for them to get to the U.S. (and they actually had family in the U.S. to help them out) and since the camp closed in 1950, I am not sure what happened in the 2 years between.
This was dramatized in “Band of Brothers” where the townsfolk were made to bury the dead barehanded, apparently on orders from General Taylor. The camp that was freed by the 101st, was Landsberg, and it was later made into the DP camp, creepy huh?
These two things happen in Band of Brothers as they liberated the Kaufering IV concentration camp. The soldiers started to free and feed the prisoners until a doctor told them it’s best the prisoners stay in the camp a few days and slowly give them food. It’s a heartbreaking scene as the US soldier has to translate the bad news. Later, they force the German civilians to bury the dead prisoners. I wouldn’t say that makes it fact, but Band of Brothers was based on a true story and they tried to make it as accurate as possible.
(beat by Hello Again by a mere 14 minutes!)
EDIT (After reading a little more, it appears the 101st liberated Landsberg but the scenes were based on the liberation of Kaufering?).
There was a food called “Bengal Famine Mix” administered by the British Army to the liberated inmates of Belsen. I can’t seem to find any information online about the nature of this food, but I guess it was a thin gruel of flour in water.
A few months ago I netflixed some documentaries on the concentration camps and I do remember them referencing a camp that was quarentined for IIRC cholera, but I cant remember which one. I do know it was one of the first ones liberated in Germany however.
For a classic firsthand account, there’s Primo Levi’s The Truce/The Reawakening (the title varies), his direct sequel to If This Is A Man/Survival in Auschwitz. Tells his story from the Soviets arriving to him getting back to Turin.
There’s a film version starring John Turturro, but I haven’t seen it.
When I toured Dachau, outside of Munich, they had video there of the towns people being made to walk through a room containing piles of dead bodies.
Touring a concentration camp is something I recommend to anyone traveling into Europe. It’s not pleasant, but it should be done. I was amazed at how many people wanted to take pictures of everything though. I particularly remember walking through a gas chamber and seeing a guy stop and take a picture of it (not a professional photographer, just a quick shot as he walked through). I couldn’t imagine the conversation when he showed that to someone.
That’s what DP meant to grandma! Every time I saw my grandmother during the winters of my hippie phase she would see my wool socks and Birkenstocks and tell me I looked like a DP. I always thought it rude she thought I looked like filthy porno, now it all comes together.