A moving photograph showing inmates of Dachau concentration camp – both youths and adults – cheering as American soldiers approach during the liberation of the camp by U.S. Army forces.
Photographed on April 29, 1945.
In the photo, dozens of prisoners are seen behind barbed wire fencing, with buildings from the Dachau camp complex visible in the background. Many of the individuals in the photo are teenagers in prisoner uniforms, raising their caps, smiling, and cheering as they are liberated from the Dachau death camp.
Dachau was the first concentration camp established by Nazi Germany, as early as 1933. Initially intended for German political opponents (communists, socialists), it soon became the model for all future camps, and held Jews, Roma, homosexuals, clergy, and others. Over the course of the war, more than 200,000 prisoners were held in Dachau. Tens of thousands perished from disease, torture, inhumane conditions, executions, or were deported to extermination camps. Dachau was liberated by soldiers from the 45th and 42nd Divisions of the United States Army. The liberators were shocked by the horrors they encountered: thousands of corpses, rail cars filled with the dead, and the complete destruction of human dignity. Following the liberation, there was widespread outrage among the soldiers, leading to the execution of several SS guards on site. The newly liberated inmates – many of them on the brink of death – responded with jubilation, hugs, tears, songs, and a first glimpse of hope. Numerous photographs from Dachau were taken by the U.S. Army as part of a documentation effort aimed at exposing the crimes of the Nazis to the public.
This is one of the most well-known and emotional images from the liberation of the concentration camps, reproduced countless times in the decades following the war. Here is the original photograph.
22×18 cm. Minor wear to upper right corner, otherwise in good condition.
