Large photo showing US soldiers forcing German civilians to view corpses found at Buchenwald concentration camp. Taken on April 16, 1945 by American photographer Walter Chichersky.
When the Buchenwald camp was liberated by American forces in April 1945, they ordered German civilians from nearby Weimar to come view the atrocities committed by their countrymen. The civilians were made to walk past tens of thousands of corpses before they were buried, and even forced to participate in burying the dead.
In the town of Burgstein in western Germany, the British army forced 4,000 residents to view the horrific film: “The evidence”. The film showed footage from Buchenwald and Bergen-Belsen after liberation. The Allies also produced the film “Death Mills” edited by Billy Wilder documenting the terrible condition of surviving prisoners and piles of corpses found in the death camps. The film opens with titles describing the Nazi crimes as “the greatest crimes ever committed in the history of mankind”, and the soundtrack was taken from propaganda films produced by the Nazis themselves during the war. The event shown in the photo before us can be seen during the film. At the end of the film, hundreds of German civilians under Allied supervision are seen walking past a long row of dead children and adults in a forest near the camp, visibly shocked by what their countrymen had done.
The film was shown repeatedly to German populations for their "re-education."
Size: 39x31 cm. Fold crack across length of photo. Remnant of typed sticker on the back with photo description. Good condition.
