I have had two original photos from the liberation of KZ Buchenwald for a while now and decided to do some research. Both pics have "Buchenwald" written on the back. I didn't realize until later that the US soldier had a paratrooper M1 carbine. Then I looked even closer, he has an SS dagger on his belt! Then I was looking at other images from the liberation on google images.. There are several pics of the same spot but different angles. Judging from the other images , my pics were taken looking at the front of the crematorium. Behind the cart are a stack of poor souls.
There are even popular images of a senator looking at it. After reading several books on the camp I realized why the surviving inmates looked so healthy while there were skeletons in a heap. I then knew they must be sonderkommando, or basically , corpse detail. They would get extra rations for helping with disposal of the bodies. At first I was wondering how someone could do this to their fellow man.
When I read up on it, they did whatever they could to survive. Nobody could know what they would do in that situation. I found a Buchenwald political prisoner patch and put it in the frame along with a few notes describing the scene . I got the description from The Center of Holocaust and Genocidal Studies...it was from another angle of this series of photos.these are unpublished images.
R.I.P. to the. Fallen.
Dean
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