“For Six Days They Had Been Free, but They Were Too Weak to Leave, Too Weak to Move, Too Weak to Do Anything but Die.” – Issue of the American evening newspaper The Washington Daily News, Wednesday, April 18, 1945. This issue contains one of the first newspaper reports on the atrocities committed at Buchenwald concentration camp and on the appalling condition of the prisoners who were found there still alive. It was published approximately one week after the camp’s liberation by the Allies. Rare.
The front page is devoted entirely to the headline announcing the death of Ernie Pyle, America’s most beloved war correspondent during the First and Second World Wars. According to the report by Frank Tremaine from Guam, Pyle was killed by Japanese machine-gun fire during the invasion of Ie Shima. He was shot and killed instantly at approximately 10:15 a.m. during a surprise attack while standing beside the commander of a headquarters regiment. Accompanying the article is the well-known portrait photograph of Ernie Pyle in the khaki uniform of a war correspondent, taken by Milton Pyke.
Further inside, under the headline “2 More Nazi Murder Camps Uncovered, ” the report reads:
“Buchenwald, Germany, April 18 The smell of death in this place is almost too strong for human nostrils to endure. It comes from the hundreds upon hundreds of men lying here, waiting to die. For six days they had been free, but they were too weak to leave, too weak to move, too weak to do anything but die. In one of many such buildings, 1,700 lay packed together, rigidly side by side, with scarcely room to turn over. Every night one out of every fifteen died, and every morning each man turned to his neighbor, as though asking: ‘Are you still alive?'”
The report continues: “30,000 Burned: Jean Bass, a French Socialist from Paris who had been captured by the Nazis nine months earlier, spoke of it. He walked past a chest-high pile of naked bodies stacked like sacks of flour in the courtyard and pointed to the Nazis’ efficient cremation ovens in which at least 30,000 bodies had been burned. ‘We put them in three at a time, ‘ he said. ‘It takes 25 minutes to burn a man.’ He spoke calmly, as though he had reflected on it many times. Then he added, ‘Most of us were defeated, but not all. I will show you one who won. One Jew won.’
He took us to Emil Carlebach of Frankfurt, the only Jew ever to defeat the SS on their own ground. ‘I came in with 2,000 other Jews, but now almost all of them are dead. I saw Nazi records showing that at least 30,000 had died, but I was not going to die. I would not give them that satisfaction. Every night I said to myself, “Emil, you must live.”
The report continues with a harrowing account of the burning alive of a large group of Polish, Russian, and Hungarian prisoners in a hay barn. Under the headline: “With the U.S. Ninth Army, ” it reads: “Germany, April 18 – Seven hundred Polish, Russian, and Hungarian slave laborers crouched on straw soaked with gasoline inside a small barn. A young Nazi SS man in uniform, no more than 16 years old, opened the barn door and struck a match. As the flames began to spread, he laughed and slammed the door shut. A number of prisoners escaped through a rear door. As they ran from the barn, machine guns manned by other teenage SS soldiers cut them down. The Germans then approached the door, emptied their weapons into the barn, and threw in hand grenades before closing it for the last time. The Germans enjoyed it. The smell of burning flesh rose from the barn. The screams of men being burned alive filled the air. The young SS soldiers laughed. This was the account related to investigators of the U.S. XIII Corps today by ten survivors from an original group of 2,000 forced laborers who had been evacuated from an aircraft factory in eastern Germany. Most of the story was told by the resilient Hungarian musician Bunda Gáza. He led the investigators through the barn near Gardelegen, 39 kilometers north of Magdeburg. Some of the bodies were still smoldering in the ashes. Gáza described how he and others desperately tried to dig holes beneath the wall of the barn with their bare hands. Three of them dug for an hour, pushing their heads through the opening to breathe. In the end, they managed to wriggle their way out.”
The reports published here were, among the first accounts of the atrocities committed by the Nazis in the death camps to appear in the American press, published even before the official Victory in Europe Day, declared on May 8.
Another report appearing in this issue heralds the defeat of Nazi Germany. Under the headline: “Nazis Say There Are No Longer Eastern and Western Fronts; Only ‘Sectors’ Remain, ” it reads: “London, April 18 – A Nazi radio commentator said today that the Eastern and Western Fronts had ‘ceased to exist’ as a result of Allied breakthroughs from both directions. ‘What remains is a number of combat sectors now in the process of formation, ‘ commentator Max Krull said in a Berlin broadcast. ‘The organic structure of the German front has ceased to exist. The terms “Western Front” and “Eastern Front” have lost their meaning.'”
Additional articles in the issue report on American soldiers killed in action who left behind grieving widows, acts of heroism by military commanders, recognition of the American correspondents who covered the war, Truman’s first hundred days in office, and more.
The Washington Daily News was a daily evening newspaper published in Washington, D.C., from 1921 to 1972. It belonged to the renowned Scripps-Howard newspaper chain—the same organization for which Ernie Pyle himself worked as both a reporter and an editor. The newspaper was known for its accessible style, bold headlines, and strong emphasis on photographic coverage and local news alongside national headlines. In 1972, following financial difficulties, the newspaper ceased publication and was merged into its competitor, the Washington Star.
47 pages. Complete issue. 40 cm. Minor tears to the margins of some leaves. Good condition.
