Great Patriotic War left an indelible mark on the history and destinies of people. Many lost loved ones who were killed or tortured. In the article we will look at the Nazi concentration camps and the atrocities that happened on their territories.

What is a concentration camp?

A concentration camp or concentration camp is a special place intended for the detention of persons of the following categories:

• political prisoners (opponents of the dictatorial regime);
• prisoners of war (captured soldiers and civilians).

Nazi concentration camps became notorious for their inhuman cruelty to prisoners and impossible conditions of detention. These places of detention began to appear even before Hitler came to power, and even then they were divided into women's, men's and children's. Mainly Jews and opponents of the Nazi system were kept there.

Life in the camp

Humiliation and abuse for prisoners began from the moment of transportation. People were transported in freight cars, where there was not even running water or a fenced-off latrine. Prisoners had to relieve themselves publicly, in a tank standing in the middle of the carriage.

But this was only the beginning; a lot of abuse and torture were prepared for the concentration camps of fascists who were undesirable to the Nazi regime. Torture of women and children, medical experiments, aimless exhausting work - this is not the whole list.

The conditions of detention can be judged from the prisoners’ letters: “they lived in hellish conditions, ragged, barefoot, hungry... I was constantly and severely beaten, deprived of food and water, tortured...”, “They shot me, flogged me, poisoned me with dogs, drowned me in water, beat me to death.” with sticks and starvation. They were infected with tuberculosis... suffocated by a cyclone. Poisoned with chlorine. They burned..."

The corpses were skinned and hair cut off - all this was then used in the German textile industry. The doctor Mengele became famous for his horrific experiments on prisoners, at whose hands thousands of people died. He studied mental and physical exhaustion of the body. He conducted experiments on twins, during which they received organ transplants from each other, blood transfusions, and sisters were forced to give birth to children from their own brothers. Performed sex reassignment surgery.

All fascist concentration camps became famous for such abuses; we will consider the names and conditions of detention in the main ones below.

Camp diet

Typically, the daily ration in the camp was as follows:

• bread - 130 gr;
• fat - 20 g;
• meat - 30 g;
• cereal - 120 gr;
• sugar - 27 gr.

Bread was handed out, and the rest of the products were used for cooking, which consisted of soup (issued 1 or 2 times a day) and porridge (150 - 200 grams). It should be noted that such a diet was intended only for working people. Those who, for some reason, remained unemployed received even less. Usually their portion consisted of only half a portion of bread.

List of concentration camps in different countries

Fascist concentration camps were created in the territories of Germany, allied and occupied countries. There are a lot of them, but let’s name the main ones:

• In Germany - Halle, Buchenwald, Cottbus, Dusseldorf, Schlieben, Ravensbrück, Esse, Spremberg;
• Austria - Mauthausen, Amstetten;
• France - Nancy, Reims, Mulhouse;
• Poland - Majdanek, Krasnik, Radom, Auschwitz, Przemysl;
• Lithuania - Dimitravas, Alytus, Kaunas;
• Czechoslovakia - Kunta Gora, Natra, Hlinsko;
• Estonia - Pirkul, Pärnu, Klooga;
• Belarus - Minsk, Baranovichi;
• Latvia - Salaspils.

And this is far from full list all concentration camps that were built by Nazi Germany in the pre-war and war years.

Salaspils

Salaspils, one might say, is the most terrible Nazi concentration camp, because in addition to prisoners of war and Jews, children were also kept there. It was located on the territory of occupied Latvia and was the central eastern camp. It was located near Riga and operated from 1941 (September) to 1944 (summer).

Children in this camp were not only kept separately from adults and exterminated en masse, but were used as blood donors for German soldiers. Every day, about half a liter of blood was taken from all children, which led to the rapid death of donors.

Salaspils was not like Auschwitz or Majdanek (extermination camps), where people were herded into gas chambers and then their corpses were burned. It was used for medical research, which killed more than 100,000 people. Salaspils was not like other Nazi concentration camps. Torture of children was a routine activity here, carried out according to a schedule with the results carefully recorded.

Experiments on children

Testimony of witnesses and results of investigations revealed the following methods of extermination of people in the Salaspils camp: beating, starvation, arsenic poisoning, injection of dangerous substances (most often to children), carrying out surgical operations without painkillers, pumping out blood (children only), executions, torture, useless hard labor (carrying stones from place to place), gas chambers, burying alive. In order to save ammunition, the camp charter prescribed that children should be killed only with rifle butts. The atrocities of the Nazis in the concentration camps surpassed everything that humanity had seen in modern times. Similar attitude towards people cannot be justified, because it violates all conceivable and inconceivable moral commandments.

Children did not stay with their mothers for long and were usually quickly taken away and distributed. Thus, children under six years of age were kept in a special barracks where they were infected with measles. But they did not treat it, but aggravated the disease, for example, by bathing, which is why the children died within 3-4 days. The Germans killed more than 3,000 people in one year in this way. The bodies of the dead were partly burned and partly buried on the camp grounds.

In the Act Nuremberg trials“about the extermination of children” the following numbers were given: during the excavation of only a fifth of the concentration camp territory, 633 bodies of children aged 5 to 9 years, arranged in layers, were discovered; an area soaked in an oily substance was also found, where the remains of unburned children’s bones (teeth, ribs, joints, etc.) were found.

Salaspils is truly the most terrible Nazi concentration camp, because the atrocities described above are not all the tortures that the prisoners were subjected to. Thus, in winter, children brought in barefoot and naked were driven half a kilometer to a barracks, where they had to wash themselves in ice water. After this, the children were driven in the same way to the next building, where they were kept in the cold for 5-6 days. Moreover, the age of the eldest child did not even reach 12 years. Everyone who survived this procedure was also subjected to arsenic poisoning.

Infants were kept separately and given injections, from which the child died in agony within a few days. They gave us coffee and poisoned cereals. About 150 children died from experiments per day. The bodies of the dead were carried out in large baskets and burned, dumped in cesspools, or buried near the camp.

Ravensbrück

If we start listing Nazi women's concentration camps, Ravensbrück will come first. This was the only camp of this type in Germany. It could accommodate thirty thousand prisoners, but by the end of the war it was overcrowded by fifteen thousand. Mostly Russian and Polish women were detained; Jews numbered approximately 15 percent. There were no prescribed instructions regarding torture and torment; the supervisors chose the line of behavior themselves.

Arriving women were undressed, shaved, washed, given a robe and assigned a number. Race was also indicated on clothing. People turned into impersonal cattle. In small barracks (in the post-war years, 2-3 refugee families lived in them) there were approximately three hundred prisoners, who were housed on three-story bunks. When the camp was overcrowded, up to a thousand people were herded into these cells, all of whom had to sleep on the same bunks. The barracks had several toilets and a washbasin, but there were so few of them that after a few days the floors were littered with excrement. Almost all Nazi concentration camps presented this picture (the photos presented here are only a small fraction of all the horrors).

But not all women ended up in the concentration camp; a selection was made beforehand. The strong and resilient, fit for work, were left behind, and the rest were destroyed. Prisoners worked at construction sites and sewing workshops.

Gradually, Ravensbrück was equipped with a crematorium, like all Nazi concentration camps. Gas chambers (nicknamed gas chambers by prisoners) appeared towards the end of the war. Ashes from crematoria were sent to nearby fields as fertilizer.

Experiments were also carried out in Ravensbrück. In a special barracks called the "infirmary", German scientists tested new medications, pre-infecting or crippling experimental subjects. There were few survivors, but even those suffered from what they had endured until the end of their lives. Experiments were also conducted with irradiating women with X-rays, which caused hair loss, skin pigmentation, and death. Excisions of the genital organs were carried out, after which few survived, and even those quickly aged, and at the age of 18 they looked like old women. Similar experiments were carried out in all Nazi concentration camps; torture of women and children was the main crime of Nazi Germany against humanity.

At the time of the liberation of the concentration camp by the Allies, five thousand women remained there; the rest were killed or transported to other places of detention. The Soviet troops who arrived in April 1945 adapted the camp barracks to accommodate refugees. Ravensbrück later became a base for Soviet military units.

Nazi concentration camps: Buchenwald

Construction of the camp began in 1933, near the town of Weimar. Soon, Soviet prisoners of war began to arrive, becoming the first prisoners, and they completed the construction of the “hellish” concentration camp.

The structure of all structures was strictly thought out. Immediately behind the gate began the “Appelplat” (parallel ground), specially designed for the formation of prisoners. Its capacity was twenty thousand people. Not far from the gate there was a punishment cell for interrogations, and opposite there was an office where the camp fuehrer and the officer on duty - the camp authorities - lived. Deeper down were the barracks for prisoners. All barracks were numbered, there were 52 of them. At the same time, 43 were intended for housing, and workshops were set up in the rest.

The Nazi concentration camps left behind a terrible memory; their names still evoke fear and shock in many, but the most terrifying of them is Buchenwald. The crematorium was considered the most terrible place. People were invited there under the pretext of a medical examination. When the prisoner undressed, he was shot and the body was sent to the oven.

Only men were kept in Buchenwald. Upon arrival at the camp, they were assigned a number German, which had to be learned in the first 24 hours. The prisoners worked at the Gustlovsky weapons factory, which was located a few kilometers from the camp.

Continuing to describe the Nazi concentration camps, let us turn to the so-called “small camp” of Buchenwald.

Small camp of Buchenwald

The “small camp” was the name given to the quarantine zone. The living conditions here were, even compared to the main camp, simply hellish. In 1944, when German troops began to retreat, prisoners from Auschwitz and the Compiegne camp were brought to this camp; they were mainly Soviet citizens, Poles and Czechs, and later Jews. There was not enough space for everyone, so some of the prisoners (six thousand people) were housed in tents. The closer 1945 got, the more prisoners were transported. Meanwhile, the “small camp” included 12 barracks measuring 40 x 50 meters. Torture in Nazi concentration camps was not only specially planned or for scientific purposes, life itself in such a place was torture. 750 people lived in the barracks; their daily ration consisted of a small piece of bread; those who were not working were no longer entitled to it.

Relations among prisoners were tough; cases of cannibalism and murder for someone else's portion of bread were documented. A common practice was to store the bodies of the dead in barracks in order to receive their rations. The dead man's clothes were divided among his cellmates, and they often fought over them. Due to such conditions in the camp there were widespread infectious diseases. Vaccinations only worsened the situation, since injection syringes were not changed.

Photos simply cannot convey all the inhumanity and horror of the Nazi concentration camp. The stories of witnesses are not intended for the faint of heart. In each camp, not excluding Buchenwald, there were medical groups of doctors who conducted experiments on prisoners. It should be noted that the data they obtained allowed German medicine to step far forward - no other country in the world had such a number of experimental people. Another question is whether it was worth the millions of tortured children and women, the inhuman suffering that these innocent people endured.

Prisoners were irradiated, healthy limbs were amputated, organs were removed, and they were sterilized and castrated. They tested how long a person could withstand extreme cold or heat. They were specially infected with diseases and introduced experimental drugs. Thus, an anti-typhoid vaccine was developed in Buchenwald. In addition to typhus, prisoners were infected with smallpox, yellow fever, diphtheria, and paratyphoid.

Since 1939, the camp was run by Karl Koch. His wife, Ilse, was nicknamed the “Witch of Buchenwald” for her love of sadism and inhumane abuse of prisoners. They feared her more than her husband (Karl Koch) and Nazi doctors. She was later nicknamed "Frau Lampshaded". The woman owed this nickname to the fact that she made various decorative things from the skin of killed prisoners, in particular, lampshades, which she was very proud of. Most of all, she liked to use the skin of Russian prisoners with tattoos on their backs and chests, as well as the skin of gypsies. Things made of such material seemed to her the most elegant.

The liberation of Buchenwald took place on April 11, 1945, at the hands of the prisoners themselves. Having learned about the approach of the allied troops, they disarmed the guards, captured the camp leadership and controlled the camp for two days until American soldiers approached.

Auschwitz (Auschwitz-Birkenau)

When listing Nazi concentration camps, it is impossible to ignore Auschwitz. It was one of the largest concentration camps, in which, according to various sources, from one and a half to four million people died. The exact details of the dead remain unclear. The victims were mainly Jewish prisoners of war, who were exterminated immediately upon arrival in gas chambers Oh.

The concentration camp complex itself was called Auschwitz-Birkenau and was located on the outskirts of the Polish city of Auschwitz, whose name became a household name. The following words were engraved above the camp gate: “Work sets you free.”

This huge complex, built in 1940, consisted of three camps:

• Auschwitz I or the main camp - the administration was located here;
• Auschwitz II or "Birkenau" - was called a death camp;
• Auschwitz III or Buna Monowitz.

Initially, the camp was small and intended for political prisoners. But gradually more and more prisoners arrived at the camp, 70% of whom were destroyed immediately. Many tortures in Nazi concentration camps were borrowed from Auschwitz. Thus, the first gas chamber began to function in 1941. The gas used was Cyclone B. The terrible invention was first tested on Soviet and Polish prisoners totaling about nine hundred people.

Auschwitz II began its operation on March 1, 1942. Its territory included four crematoria and two gas chambers. In the same year, medical experiments on sterilization and castration began on women and men.

Small camps gradually formed around Birkenau, where prisoners working in factories and mines were kept. One of these camps gradually grew and became known as Auschwitz III or Buna Monowitz. Approximately ten thousand prisoners were held here.

Like any Nazi concentration camps, Auschwitz was well guarded. Contacts with outside world were banned, the territory was surrounded by a barbed wire fence, and guard posts were set up around the camp at a distance of a kilometer.

Five crematoria operated continuously on the territory of Auschwitz, which, according to experts, had a monthly capacity of approximately 270 thousand corpses.

January 27, 1945 Soviet troops Auschwitz-Birkenau camp was liberated. By that time, approximately seven thousand prisoners remained alive. Such a small number of survivors is due to the fact that about a year earlier in the concentration camp, massacres in gas chambers (gas chambers).

Since 1947, on the territory of the former concentration camp A museum and memorial complex began to function, dedicated to the memory of all those who died at the hands of Nazi Germany.

Conclusion

During the entire war, according to statistics, approximately four and a half million Soviet citizens were captured. These were mostly civilians from the occupied territories. It’s hard to even imagine what these people went through. But it was not only the bullying of the Nazis in the concentration camps that they were destined to endure. Thanks to Stalin, after their liberation, returning home, they received the stigma of “traitors.” The Gulag awaited them at home, and their families were subjected to serious repression. One captivity gave way to another for them. In fear for their lives and the lives of their loved ones, they changed their last names and tried in every possible way to hide their experiences.

Until recently, information about the fate of prisoners after release was not advertised and kept silent. But people who have experienced this simply should not be forgotten.

These photographs show life and martyrdom prisoners of Nazi concentration camps. Some of these photos can be emotionally traumatizing. Therefore, we ask children and mentally unstable people to refrain from viewing these photographs.

Prisoners of the Flossenburg concentration camp after liberation by the 97th Infantry Division of the US Army in May 1945. The emaciated prisoner at the center, a 23-year-old Czech, is suffering from dysentery.

Prisoners of the Ampfing concentration camp after liberation.

View of the Grini concentration camp in Norway.

Soviet prisoners in the Lamsdorf concentration camp (Stalag VIII-B, now the Polish village of Lambinowice.

The bodies of executed SS guards at observation tower "B" of the Dachau concentration camp.

View of the barracks of the Dachau concentration camp.

Soldiers of the 45th American Infantry Division show teenagers from the Hitler Youth the bodies of prisoners in a carriage at the Dachau concentration camp.

View of the Buchenwald barracks after the liberation of the camp.

American generals George Patton, Omar Bradley and Dwight Eisenhower in the Ohrdruf concentration camp near the fire where the Germans burned the bodies of prisoners.

Soviet prisoners of war in the Stalag XVIII concentration camp.

Soviet prisoners of war eat in the Stalag XVIII concentration camp.

Soviet prisoners of war near the barbed wire of the Stalag XVIII concentration camp.

A Soviet prisoner of war near the barracks of the Stalag XVIII concentration camp.

British prisoners of war on the stage of the theater of the Stalag XVIII concentration camp.

Captured British corporal Eric Evans with three comrades on the territory of the Stalag XVIII concentration camp.

Burnt bodies of prisoners of the Ohrdruf concentration camp.

The bodies of prisoners of the Buchenwald concentration camp.

Women from the SS guards of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp unload the corpses of prisoners for burial in a mass grave. They were attracted to this work by the allies who liberated the camp. Around the ditch there is a convoy of English soldiers. As a punishment, former guards are prohibited from wearing gloves to expose them to the risk of contracting typhus.

Six British prisoners on the territory of the Stalag XVIII concentration camp.

Soviet prisoners talking to German officer in the Stalag XVIII concentration camp.

Soviet prisoners of war change clothes in the Stalag XVIII concentration camp.

Group photo of Allied prisoners (British, Australians and New Zealanders) at the Stalag XVIII concentration camp.

An orchestra of Allied prisoners (Australians, British and New Zealanders) on the territory of the Stalag XVIII concentration camp.

Captured Allied soldiers play the game Two Up for cigarettes on the grounds of the Stalag 383 concentration camp.

Two British prisoners near the wall of the barracks of the Stalag 383 concentration camp.

A German soldier guard at the market of the Stalag 383 concentration camp, surrounded by Allied prisoners.

Group photo of Allied prisoners at Stalag 383 concentration camp on Christmas Day 1943.

Barracks of the Vollan concentration camp in the Norwegian city of Trondheim after liberation.

A group of Soviet prisoners of war outside the gates of the Norwegian concentration camp Falstad after liberation.

SS Oberscharführer Erich Weber on vacation in the commandant's quarters of the Norwegian concentration camp Falstad.

The commandant of the Norwegian concentration camp Falstad, SS Hauptscharführer Karl Denk (left) and SS Oberscharführer Erich Weber (right) in the commandant's room.

Five liberated prisoners of the Falstad concentration camp at the gate.

Prisoners of the Norwegian concentration camp Falstad on vacation during a break between working in the field.

Employee of the Falstad concentration camp, SS Oberscharführer Erich Weber

SS non-commissioned officers K. Denk, E. Weber and Luftwaffe sergeant major R. Weber with two women in the commandant's room of the Norwegian concentration camp Falstad.

An employee of the Norwegian concentration camp Falstad, SS Oberscharführer Erich Weber, in the kitchen of the commandant's house.

Soviet, Norwegian and Yugoslav prisoners of the Falstad concentration camp on vacation at a logging site.

The head of the women's block of the Norwegian concentration camp Falstad, Maria Robbe, with policemen at the gates of the camp.

Prisoners soviet soldiers in the camp at the beginning of the war.

Military history knows many cases of cruelty, deceit and betrayal.

Some cases are striking in their scale, others in their belief in absolute impunity, one thing is obvious: for some reason, some people who find themselves in harsh military conditions for some reason decide that the law is not written to them, and they have the right to control the destinies of others, making people suffer .

Below are some of the creepiest realities that took place in war time.

1. Nazi Baby Factories

The photo below shows the baptism ceremony small child, which was "derived" by Aryan selection.

During the ceremony, one of the SS men holds a dagger over the baby, and the new mother gives it to the Nazis oath of allegiance.

It is important to note that this baby was one of tens of thousands of babies who participated in the project "Lebensborn". However, not all children were given life in this children's factory; some were kidnapped and only raised there.

Factory of true Aryans

The Nazis believed that there were few Aryans with blond hair and blue eyes in the world, which is why it was decided, by the way, by the same people who were responsible for the Holocaust, to launch the Lebensborn project, which dealt with breeding purebred Aryans, who in the future were supposed to join the Nazi ranks.

It was planned to house the children in beautiful houses that were appropriated after the mass extermination of Jews.

And it all started with the fact that after the occupation of Europe, mixing with the indigenous inhabitants was actively encouraged among the SS men. The main thing that number Nordic race grew up.

Pregnant unmarried girls, as part of the "Lebensborn" program, were placed in houses with all the amenities where they gave birth and raised their children. Thanks to such care, during the war years it was possible to raise from 16,000 to 20,000 Nazis.

But, as it later turned out, this amount was not enough, so other measures were taken. The Nazis began to forcibly take away from their mothers children who had the desired hair and eye color.

It is worth adding that many of the embezzled children were orphans. Of course, light skin color and the absence of parents are not an excuse for the activities of the Nazis, but, nevertheless, at that difficult time, children had something to eat and a roof over their heads.

Some parents gave up their children so as not to end up in the gas chamber. Those who best suited the given parameters were selected literally immediately, without unnecessary persuasion.

At the same time, no genetic examinations were carried out; children were selected based only on visual information. Those selected were included in the program, or they were sent to some German family. Those who did not fit ended their lives in concentration camps.

Poles say that because of this program, the country has lost about 200,000 children. But it is unlikely that we will ever be able to find out the exact figure, because many children have successfully settled into German families.

Cruelty during war

2. Hungarian Angels of Death

Do not think that only the Nazis committed atrocities during the war. Ordinary Hungarian women shared the pedestal of perverted military nightmares with them.

It turns out that you don’t have to serve in the army to commit crimes. These lovely guardians of the home front, having combined their efforts, sent almost three hundred people to the next world.

It all started during the First World War. It was then that many women living in the village of Nagiryov, whose husbands had gone to the front, began to become increasingly interested in the prisoners of war of the allied armies located nearby.

Women liked this kind of affair, and prisoners of war, apparently, too. But when their husbands began to return from the war, something abnormal began to happen. One by one the soldiers died. Because of this, the village received the name "murder district".

The killings began in 1911, when a midwife named Fuzekas appeared in the village. She taught women who were temporarily left without husbands get rid of the consequences of contacts with lovers.

After the soldiers began returning from the war, the midwife suggested that the wives boil sticky paper intended to kill flies to obtain arsenic, and then add it to food.

Arsenic

Thus, they were able to commit a huge number of murders, and the women remained unpunished due to the fact that the village official was the midwife's brother, and wrote “not killed” on all death certificates of the victims.

The method gained so much popularity that almost any, even the most insignificant problem, began to be solved with the help of soup with arsenic. When the neighboring settlements finally realized what was happening, fifty criminals managed to kill three hundred people, including unwanted husbands, lovers, parents, children, relatives and neighbors.

Hunting for people

3. Human body parts as trophies

It is important to say that during the war, many countries conducted propaganda among their soldiers, within the framework of which it was implanted in their brains that the enemy was not a person.

American soldiers also distinguished themselves in this regard, whose psyches were very actively influenced. Among them the so-called "hunting licenses."

One of them sounded like this: The Japanese hunting season is open! There are no restrictions! Hunters get rewarded! Free ammo and equipment! Join the ranks of the American Marine Corps!

Therefore, it is not surprising that American soldiers during the Battle of Guadalcanal, killing the Japanese, They cut off their ears and kept them as souvenirs.

Moreover, necklaces were made from the teeth of those killed, their skulls were sent home as souvenirs, and their ears were often worn around the neck or on a belt.

In 1942, the problem became so widespread that the command was forced to issue a decree which prohibited the appropriation of enemy body parts as trophies. But the measures were late, because the soldiers had already fully mastered the technology of cleaning and cutting up skulls.

The soldiers loved to take pictures with them.

This "fun" is firmly rooted. Even Roosevelt was forced to abandon the writing knife, which was made from a Japanese leg bone. It seemed as if the whole country is going crazy.

The light at the end of the tunnel appeared after a furious reaction from Life newspaper readers, who were angered and disgusted by the published photographs (and there were countless of them). The Japanese reaction was the same.

The most cruel woman

4. Irma Grese - human (?) - hyena

What can happen in a concentration camp that can terrify even a person who has seen a lot?

Irma Grese was a Nazi overseer who experienced sexual arousal while people were being tortured.

In terms of external indicators, Irma was the ideal of an Aryan teenager, because she perfectly met the established standards of beauty, was physically strong and ideologically prepared.

Inside, it was a man - a time bomb.

This is Irma without her paraphernalia. However, she almost always walked around with a whip strewn with precious stones, with a pistol and several hungry dogs who were ready to carry out her every order.

This woman could shoot at any person at her whim, whipped her captives and kicked them. This made her very excited.

Irma loved her job very much. She received incredible physical pleasure by cutting the chests of female prisoners until they bled. The wounds became inflamed and, as a rule, it was required surgical intervention which was carried out without anesthesia.

These photographs show the life and martyrdom of Nazi concentration camp prisoners. Some of these photos can be emotionally traumatizing. Therefore, we ask children and mentally unstable people to refrain from viewing these photographs.

Liberated prisoners of an Austrian concentration camp in an American military hospital.

Clothes of concentration camp prisoners abandoned after liberation in April 1945/

American soldiers inspect the site of the mass execution of 250 Polish and French prisoners at a concentration camp near Leipzig on April 19, 1945.

A Ukrainian girl released from a concentration camp in Salzburg (Austria) cooks food on a small stove.

Prisoners of the Flossenburg concentration camp after liberation by the 97th Infantry Division of the US Army in May 1945. The emaciated prisoner in the center - a 23-year-old Czech - is sick with dysentery.

Prisoners of the Ampfing concentration camp after liberation.

View of the Grini concentration camp in Norway.

Soviet prisoners in the Lamsdorf concentration camp (Stalag VIII-B, now the Polish village of Lambinowice.

The bodies of executed SS guards at observation tower "B" of the Dachau concentration camp.

View of the barracks of the Dachau concentration camp.

Soldiers of the 45th American Infantry Division show teenagers from the Hitler Youth the bodies of prisoners in a carriage at the Dachau concentration camp.

View of the Buchenwald barracks after the liberation of the camp.

American generals George Patton, Omar Bradley and Dwight Eisenhower in the Ohrdruf concentration camp near the fire where the Germans burned the bodies of prisoners.

Soviet prisoners of war in the Stalag XVIII concentration camp.

Soviet prisoners of war eat in the Stalag XVIII concentration camp.

Soviet prisoners of war near the barbed wire of the Stalag XVIII concentration camp.

A Soviet prisoner of war near the barracks of the Stalag XVIII concentration camp.

British prisoners of war on the stage of the theater of the Stalag XVIII concentration camp.

Captured British corporal Eric Evans with three comrades on the territory of the Stalag XVIII concentration camp.

Burnt bodies of prisoners of the Ohrdruf concentration camp.

The bodies of prisoners of the Buchenwald concentration camp.

Women from the SS guards of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp unload the corpses of prisoners. Women from the SS guards of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp unload the corpses of prisoners for burial in a mass grave. They were attracted to this work by the allies who liberated the camp. Around the ditch is a convoy of English soldiers. As a punishment, former guards are prohibited from wearing gloves to expose them to the risk of contracting typhus.

Six British prisoners on the territory of the Stalag XVIII concentration camp.

Soviet prisoners talk with a German officer in the Stalag XVIII concentration camp.

Soviet prisoners of war change clothes in the Stalag XVIII concentration camp.

Group photo of Allied prisoners (British, Australians and New Zealanders) at the Stalag XVIII concentration camp.

An orchestra of Allied prisoners (Australians, British and New Zealanders) on the territory of the Stalag XVIII concentration camp.

Captured Allied soldiers play the game Two Up for cigarettes on the grounds of the Stalag 383 concentration camp.

Two British prisoners near the wall of the barracks of the Stalag 383 concentration camp.

A German soldier guard at the market of the Stalag 383 concentration camp, surrounded by Allied prisoners.

Group photo of Allied prisoners at Stalag 383 concentration camp on Christmas Day 1943.

Barracks of the Vollan concentration camp in the Norwegian city of Trondheim after liberation.

A group of Soviet prisoners of war outside the gates of the Norwegian concentration camp Falstad after liberation.

SS Oberscharführer Erich Weber on vacation in the commandant's quarters of the Norwegian concentration camp Falstad.

The commandant of the Norwegian concentration camp Falstad, SS Hauptscharführer Karl Denk (left) and SS Oberscharführer Erich Weber (right) in the commandant's room.

Five liberated prisoners of the Falstad concentration camp at the gate.

Prisoners of the Norwegian concentration camp Falstad on vacation during a break between working in the field.

Employee of the Falstad concentration camp, SS Oberscharführer Erich Weber

SS non-commissioned officers K. Denk, E. Weber and Luftwaffe sergeant major R. Weber with two women in the commandant's room of the Norwegian concentration camp Falstad.

An employee of the Norwegian concentration camp Falstad, SS Oberscharführer Erich Weber, in the kitchen of the commandant's house.

Soviet, Norwegian and Yugoslav prisoners of the Falstad concentration camp on vacation at a logging site.

The head of the women's block of the Norwegian concentration camp Falstad, Maria Robbe, with policemen at the gates of the camp.

A group of Soviet prisoners of war on the territory of the Norwegian concentration camp Falstad after liberation.

Seven guards of the Norwegian concentration camp Falstad (Falstad) at the main gate.

Panorama of the Norwegian concentration camp Falstad after liberation.

Black French prisoners in the Frontstalag 155 camp in the village of Lonvik.

Black French prisoners wash clothes in the Frontstalag 155 camp in the village of Lonvik.

Participants of the Warsaw Uprising from the Home Army in a concentration camp barracks near the German village of Oberlangen.

The body of a shot SS guard in a canal near the Dachau concentration camp

A column of prisoners from the Norwegian concentration camp Falstad passes in the courtyard of the main building.

Liberated children, prisoners of the Auschwitz concentration camp (Auschwitz) show camp numbers tattooed on their arms.

Train tracks leading to the Auschwitz concentration camp.

An exhausted Hungarian prisoner freed from the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

A released prisoner of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp who fell ill with typhus in one of the camp barracks.

A group of children liberated from the Auschwitz concentration camp. In total, about 7,500 people were liberated from the camp, including children. The Germans managed to transport about 50 thousand prisoners from Auschwitz to other camps before the approach of the Red Army.

Prisoners demonstrate the process of destroying corpses in the crematorium of the Dachau concentration camp.

Captured Red Army soldiers who died from hunger and cold. The prisoner of war camp was located in the village of Bolshaya Rossoshka near Stalingrad.

The body of a guard at the Ohrdruf concentration camp, killed by prisoners or American soldiers.

Prisoners in a barracks at the Ebensee concentration camp.

Irma Grese and Josef Kramer in the courtyard of a prison in the German city of Celle. The head of the labor service of the women's block of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp - Irma Grese and his commandant SS Hauptsturmführer (Captain) Josef Kramer under British escort in the courtyard of the prison in Celle, Germany.

A girl prisoner of the Croatian concentration camp Jasenovac.

Soviet prisoners of war carrying building elements for the barracks of the Stalag 304 Zeithain camp.

Surrendered SS Untersturmführer Heinrich Wicker (later shot by American soldiers) near the carriage with the bodies of prisoners of the Dachau concentration camp. In the photo, second from left is Red Cross representative Victor Myrer.

A man in civilian clothes stands near the bodies of prisoners of the Buchenwald concentration camp.
In the background, Christmas wreaths hang near the windows.

The British and Americans released from captivity stand on the territory of the Dulag-Luft prisoner of war camp in Wetzlar, Germany.

Liberated prisoners of the Nordhausen death camp sit on the porch.

Prisoners of the Gardelegen concentration camp, killed by guards shortly before the liberation of the camp.

The corpses of prisoners of the Buchenwald concentration camp, prepared for burning in a crematorium, in the back of a trailer.

Aerial photography of the northwestern part of the Auschwitz concentration camp with the main objects of the camp marked: the railway station and the Auschwitz I camp.

American generals (from right to left) Dwight Eisenhower, Omar Bradley and George Patton watch a demonstration of one of the methods of torture at the Gotha concentration camp.

Mountains of clothes of prisoners of the Dachau concentration camp.

A released seven-year-old prisoner of the Buchenwald concentration camp in line before being sent to Switzerland.

Prisoners of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in formation.

A Soviet prisoner of war released from the Saltfjellet concentration camp in Norway.

Soviet prisoners of war in a barracks after liberation from the Saltfjellet concentration camp in Norway.

A Soviet prisoner of war leaves a barracks in the Saltfjellet concentration camp in Norway.

Women liberated by the Red Army from the Ravensbrück concentration camp, located 90 km north of Berlin.

German officers and civilians walk past a group of Soviet prisoners during an inspection of a concentration camp.

Soviet prisoners of war in the camp in formation during verification.

Captured Soviet soldiers in a camp at the beginning of the war.

Captured Red Army soldiers enter the camp barracks.

Four Polish prisoners of the Oberlangen concentration camp (Oberlangen, Stalag VI C) after liberation. Women were among the Warsaw rebels who capitulated.

The orchestra of prisoners of the Janowska concentration camp performs the Tango of Death. On the eve of the liberation of Lviv by units of the Red Army, the Germans lined up a circle of 40 people from the orchestra. The camp guard surrounded the musicians in a tight ring and ordered them to play. First, the orchestra conductor Mund was executed, then, by order of the commandant, each orchestra member went to the center of the circle, put his instrument on the ground and stripped naked, after which he was shot in the head.

Two American soldiers and a former prisoner retrieve the body of a shot SS guard from a canal near the Dachau concentration camp.

The Ustasha execute prisoners in the Jasenovac concentration camp.

Instead of a preface:

"When there were no gas chambers, we shot on Wednesdays and Fridays. The children tried to hide on these days. Now the crematorium ovens work day and night and the children no longer hide. The children are used to it.

- This is the first eastern subgroup.

- How are you, children?

- How do you live, children?

- We live well, our health is good. Come.

- I don’t need to go to the gas station, I can still give blood.

“The rats ate my rations, so I didn’t bleed.”

- I am assigned to load coal into the crematorium tomorrow.

- And I can donate blood.

- And I...

Take it.

- They don't know what it is?

- They forgot.

- Eat, children! Eat!

- Why didn’t you take it?

- Wait, I'll take it.

- You might not get it.

- Lie down, it doesn’t hurt, it’s like falling asleep. Get down!

- What's wrong with them?

- Why did they lie down?

“The children probably thought they were given poison...”

A group of Soviet prisoners of war behind barbed wire

Majdanek. Poland

The girl is a prisoner of the Croatian concentration camp Jasenovac

KZ Mauthausen, jugendliche

Children of Buchenwald

Joseph Mengele and child

Photo taken by me from Nuremberg materials

Children of Buchenwald

Mauthausen children show numbers etched into their hands

Treblinka

Two sources. One says that this is Majdanek, the other says Auschwitz

Some creatures use this photo as “proof” of hunger in Ukraine. It is not surprising that it is from Nazi crimes that they draw “inspiration” for their “revelations”

These are the children released in Salaspils

“Since the fall of 1942, masses of women, old people, and children from the occupied regions of the USSR: Leningrad, Kalinin, Vitebsk, Latgale were forcibly brought to the Salaspils concentration camp. Children from infancy to 12 years old were forcibly taken away from their mothers and kept in 9 barracks, of which the so-called 3 sick leaves, 2 for crippled children and 4 barracks for healthy children.

The permanent population of children in Salaspils was more than 1,000 people during 1943 and 1944. Their systematic extermination took place there by:

A) organizing a blood factory for the needs German army, blood was taken from both adults and healthy children, including babies, until they fainted, after which the sick children were taken to the so-called hospital, where they died;

B) gave children poisoned coffee;

C) children with measles were bathed, from which they died;

D) they injected children with child, female and even horse urine. Many children's eyes festered and leaked;

D) all children suffered from dysenteric diarrhea and dystrophy;

E) naked children in winter time they were driven to a bathhouse through the snow at a distance of 500-800 meters and kept in barracks naked for 4 days;

3) children who were crippled or injured were taken away to be shot.

Mortality among children from the above causes averaged 300-400 per month during 1943/44. to the month of June.

According to preliminary data, over 500 children were exterminated in the Salaspils concentration camp in 1942, and in 1943/44. more than 6,000 people.

During 1943/44 More than 3,000 people who survived and endured torture were taken from the concentration camp. For this purpose, a children's market was organized in Riga at 5 Gertrudes Street, where they were sold into slavery for 45 marks per summer period.

Some of the children were placed in children's camps organized for this purpose after May 1, 1943 - in Dubulti, Bulduri, Saulkrasti. After this, the German fascists continued to supply the kulaks of Latvia with slaves of Russian children from the above-mentioned camps and export them directly to the volosts of the Latvian counties, selling them for 45 Reichsmarks over the summer period.

Most of these children who were taken out and given away to be raised died because... were easily susceptible to all kinds of diseases after losing blood in the Salaspils camp.

On the eve of the expulsion of German fascists from Riga, on October 4-6, they loaded infants and small children under 4 years of age from Riga onto the ship "Menden". orphanage and the Mayor's orphanage, where the children of executed parents were kept, who came from the dungeons of the Gestapo, prefectures, prisons and partly from the Salaspils camp, and 289 small children were exterminated on that ship.

They were driven away by the Germans to Libau, an orphanage for infants located there. Children from Baldonsky and Grivsky orphanages; nothing is known about their fate yet.

Not stopping at these atrocities, the German fascists in 1944 sold low-quality products in Riga stores only using children's cards, in particular milk with some kind of powder. Why did small children die in droves? More than 400 children died in the Riga Children's Hospital alone in 9 months of 1944, including 71 children in September.

In these orphanages, the methods of raising and maintaining children were police and under the supervision of the commandant of the Salaspils concentration camp, Krause, and another German, Schaefer, who went to the children's camps and houses where the children were kept for “inspection.”

It was also established that in the Dubulti camp, children were put in a punishment cell. To do this, the former head of the Benoit camp resorted to the assistance of the German SS police.

Senior NKVD operative officer, security captain /Murman/

Children were brought from the eastern lands occupied by the Germans: Russia, Belarus, Ukraine. Children ended up in Latvia with their mothers, where they were then forcibly separated. Mothers were used as free labor. Older children were also used in various kinds of auxiliary work.

According to the People's Commissariat of Education of the LSSR, which investigated the facts of the abduction of civilians into German slavery, as of April 3, 1945, it is known that 2,802 children were distributed from the Salaspils concentration camp during the German occupation:

1) on kulak farms - 1,564 people.

2) to children's camps - 636 people.

3) taken into care by individual citizens - 602 people.

The list is compiled on the basis of data from the card index of the Social Department of Internal Affairs of the Latvian General Directorate “Ostland”. Based on the same file, it was revealed that children were forced to work from the age of five.

IN last days During their stay in Riga in October 1944, the Germans broke into orphanages, into the homes of infants, into apartments, grabbed children, drove them to the port of Riga, where they loaded them like cattle into the coal mines of steamships.

Through mass executions in the vicinity of Riga alone, the Germans killed about 10,000 children, whose corpses were burned. 17,765 children were killed in mass shootings.

Based on the investigation materials for other cities and counties of the LSSR, the following number of exterminated children was established:

Abrensky district - 497
Ludza County - 732
Rezekne County and Rezekne - 2,045, incl. through Rezekne prison more than 1,200
Madona County - 373
Daugavpils - 3,960, incl. through Daugavpils prison 2,000
Daugavpils district - 1,058
Valmiera County - 315
Jelgava - 697
Ilukstsky district - 190
Bauska County - 399
Valka County - 22
Cesis County - 32
Jekabpils County - 645
Total - 10,965 people.

In Riga, dead children were buried in the Pokrovskoye, Tornakalnskoye and Ivanovskoye cemeteries, as well as in the forest near the Salaspils camp."

In the ditch

The bodies of two child prisoners before the funeral. Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. 04/17/1945

Children behind the wire

Soviet child prisoners of the 6th Finnish concentration camp in Petrozavodsk

“The girl who is second from the post on the right in the photo - Klavdia Nyuppieva - published her memoirs many years later.

“I remember how people fainted from the heat in the so-called bathhouse, and then they were doused cold water. I remember the disinfection of the barracks, after which there was a noise in the ears and many had nosebleeds, and that steam room where all our rags were processed with great “diligence.” One day the steam room burned down, depriving many people of their last clothes.”

The Finns shot prisoners in front of children and administered corporal punishment to women, children and the elderly, regardless of age. She also said that the Finns shot young guys before leaving Petrozavodsk and that her sister was saved simply by a miracle. According to available Finnish documents, only seven men were shot for attempting to escape or other crimes. During the conversation, it turned out that the Sobolev family was one of those who were taken from Zaonezhye. It was difficult for Soboleva’s mother and her six children. Claudia said that their cow was taken away from them, they were deprived of the right to receive food for a month, then, in the summer of 1942, they were transported on a barge to Petrozavodsk and assigned to concentration camp number 6, in the 125th barrack. The mother was immediately taken to the hospital. Claudia recalled with horror the disinfection carried out by the Finns. People burned out in the so-called bathhouse, and then they were doused with cold water. The food was bad, the food was spoiled, the clothes were unusable.

Only at the end of June 1944 were they able to leave the barbed wire of the camp. There were six Sobolev sisters: 16-year-old Maria, 14-year-old Antonina, 12-year-old Raisa, nine-year-old Claudia, six-year-old Evgenia and very little Zoya, she was not yet three years old.

Worker Ivan Morekhodov spoke about the attitude of the Finns towards the prisoners: “There was little food, and it was bad. The baths were terrible. The Finns showed no pity.”

In a Finnish concentration camp

Auschwitz (Auschwitz)

Photos of 14-year-old Czeslava Kvoka

Photos of 14-year-old Czeslava Kwoka, provided State Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau were taken by Wilhelm Brasse, who worked as a photographer at Auschwitz, the Nazi death camp where about 1.5 million people, mostly Jews, died from repression during World War II. In December 1942, Polish Catholic Czeslawa, originally from the town of Wolka Zlojecka, was sent to Auschwitz along with her mother. Three months later they both died. In 2005, photographer (and fellow prisoner) Brasse described how he photographed Czeslava: “She was so young and so scared. The girl did not understand why she was here and did not understand what was being said to her. And then the kapo (prison guard) took a stick and hit her in the face. This German woman simply took out her anger on the girl. Such a beautiful, young and innocent creature. She cried, but could not do anything. Before being photographed, the girl wiped tears and blood from her broken lip. Frankly, I felt as if I had been beaten, but I could not intervene. It would have ended fatally for me."