Jan 27, 1945: The Red Army entered Birkenau Death Camp and found it almost entirely empty of human inhabitants. The Soviets liberated Auscwitz the largest killing center and concentration camp next. The Nazis had forced the majority of Auschwitz prisoners to march westward (in what would become known as death marches), and Soviet soldiers found only several thousand emaciated prisoners alive when they entered the camp. In Birkenau one survivor found in the hospital was Anne Franks father, Otto. Anne had died there months earlier from decease. (Otto would return to Amsterdam to find the famed diary.) In April after the Armistice in Holland within days Otto found Anneke Kohnke who had been hidden by her parents family friends with a Dutch family in Voorsburg outside of The Hague. This is the subject of the documentary The Baby vimeo/57314942 Though most of the storage facilities were already destroyed, the Russians discover 836,255 womens dresses, 348,000 sets of mens suits and 38,000 pairs of mens shoes. The Soviet army liberated more than 7,000 remaining prisoners, who were mostly ill and dying. They discovered more than 14,000 pounds of human hair. It is estimated that at minimum 1.3 million people were deported to Auschwitz between 1940 and 1945; of these, at least 1.1 million were murdered. US forces liberated the Buchenwald concentration camp near Weimar, Germany, on April 11, 1945, a few days after the Nazis began evacuating the camp. Thanks to The Jewish Blog Spot thisdayinjewishhistory.blogspot
Posted on: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 20:45:53 +0000
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