| Original caption: “American soldiers walk past the bodies of Ohrdruf prisoners who were killed during the evacuation of the concentration camp.” This is another angle view compared to wwii0608.jpg, taken a few minutes before or after. The labor camp was situated in a pine forest on a small hill just outside the town of Ohrdruf As the Americans crested the hill, they 1st laid eyes on this little slice of hell. Enclosed by double-row fences of barbed wire, the camp occupied about 30 acres (12 hectares) and consisted of little more than lines of ramshackle wooden barracks, painted a sickly dark green. Each barracks building was no more than a 100 by 30 feet in size, yet most had somehow sheltered as many as 250 inmates. Just outside the wire, a rickety wooden guard tower stood about 2 stories high. Bathing facilities were nonexistent. A nauseating stench of death, sickly sweet and almost suffocating, permeated the area. In a square just inside the main gate, some 30 to 50 half-clothed bodies (estimates vary) lay haphazardly in clumps. These were men whom the Germans had executed, usually with a pistol shot to the head or throat, during the hasty evacuation of Ohrdruf. Lieutenant Robert O. Cleary (May 31, 1920 – February 5, 2008), commander of a reconnaissance platoon attached to the 89th Infantry Division, could hardly believe his eyes. “There’s nothing else that I can remember in my lifetime that remains as vivid and as horrible as that,” he said. “You just can’t believe how bad this place was. It was the worst day of my whole life, and the memories are imbedded [sic] in my brain.” Private Bruce S. Nickols (May 19, 1925 – October 31, 2002), another reconnaissance soldier, was nearly overcome by “the overpowering odor of quick-lime, dirty clothing, feces, and urine.” In a vain effort to tamp down the smell, the Germans had sprinkled lime on some of the bodies. “Every time I smell lime since I get a ‘flash back’ of this horror,” Colonel Herbert S. Lowe (July 29, 1920 – August 20, 1997) of the 89th Infantry Division later wrote. Private Benjamin Fertig (September 9, 1919 – January 1, 2009), a tank crewman with the 35th Battalion, 4th Armored Division, was so sickened by the stench of the place that he could not eat for several days. “I’ve gone by the places where they recycle sewage. That ain’t half as bad [as Ohrdruf]. He felt a powerful urge to take a shower, but, under the circumstances, this was impossible. As Technician 4th Class George W. Armstrong (May 14, 1920 – August 4, 2006) surveyed the awful scene, he felt a sense of guilt at being so free amid “so many dead people who must have suffered so much.” As the stunned liberators began to explore the camp, they soon encountered the few inmates who had managed to hide out and avoid the agonizing exodus from Ordruf to the mother camp at Buchenwald. “The thing I remember most is that the whitest part of their leg was the knee bone,” Private William F. Charboneau (October 12, 1925 – October 29, 2011), a 19-year-old GI in the 89th Infantry Division, remembered decades later in a voice choked with emotion. “I mean, their faces were so drawn out, and they tried to hold their hands up to us. It was horrible.” Private William K. Coolman (March 23, 1910 – July 5, 1967) encountered 1 Russian survivor who “looked to be at least sixty years old [but] said that he was only thirty-five. The living were terrible sights.” Inside 1 of the filthy, foul-smelling, claustrophobic barracks buildings, Technician 5th Class Dick Colosimo (February 1, 1922 – September 23, 2009) found a man who had evaded the marauding guards by hiding in his bunk. The building’s only light came from 1 bulb near the door; there was no other electricity and no windows. “The bunks were stacked five high to the ceiling, so close to each other that one could not sit in an erect position in one bunk without bumping his head on the sideboard of the bed above,” Colosimo wrote. The “mattresses” consisted of nothing more than crude, straw-filled gunnysacks. The skeletal, traumatized man told Colosimo that, when the guards began rounding up prisoners, he burrowed beneath his gunnysack, holding completely still while several of them searched the building. “Our sad-faced ex-prisoner indicated that he was trembling but he held his breath, not moving, just praying. He said that he didn’t move an inch for a long, inestimable time, until he was sure it was all clear.” To Colosimo, the man seemed to be in a daze, as if he could not quite comprehend that his terrible ordeal was finally over. | |
| Image Filename | wwii0612.jpg |
| Image Size | 689.20 KB |
| Image Dimensions | 1789 x 1808 |
| Photographer | |
| Photographer Title | |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | April 8, 1945 |
| Location | |
| City | Ohrdruf |
| State or Province | Thuringia |
| Country | Germany |
| Archive | National Archives and Records Administration |
| Record Number | 111-SC-203356 |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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