| German women exhibit varied expressions as they witness the atrocity horrors of the Buchenwald Konzentrationslager (“Concentration Camp”) near Weimar, liberated by Gen. Patton’s United States 3rd Army. Citizens from Weimar were put under military police escort and marched through the camp by American authorities. Residents of Weimar are in shock during the American-ordered tour of the Buchenwald concentration camp. In the background, the Pathology Department housed in Block 2. The Pathology Department was created in 1940. The Autopsy Room in the Crematorium was under its control. It prepared all sorts of pathological specimens, which were sent either to Berlin or to the SS Medical Academy in Prague for teaching purposes or were displayed in the department’s own exhibit case. At 1400 Hours, on April 16, 1945, on the orders of General George S. Patton, who had inspected Buchenwald the previous day, a 1,000 citizens of Weimar are taken on a tour of the concentration camp. Major Lorenz C. Schmuhl (1898 – September 2, 1988)is appointed commanding officer of the camp. Armed with a camera, Signal Corps photographer Walter Chichersky documented their trip on foot from Weimar to the ovens in the Buchenwald Crematorium. News correspondents from all over the world visited the camp and made verbal and visual records of the conditions there. Throughout the rest of April and well into May, they were joined by a seemingly endless stream of delegations of the International Red Cross, the American Congress, the British parliament, American publishers and individual public figures. Private 1st Class Walter Chichersky (December 6, 1924 – April 14, 2008), 1 of the 1st Signal Corps photographers, took this series of 21 images between April 14 and 16, 1945, in the liberated Buchenwald Konzentrationslager. Born in Centralia, Pennsylvania, the son of Ukrainian immigrants, Chichersky grew up in South Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. As a teenager, he founded a Ukrainian dance group with his sisters and performed at the 1938 World’s Fair in New York. In 1941, he enlisted in the United States Army. From April 1943, he served in the 166th Signal Photographic Company in France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and Germany. He was the 1st war photographer to take photographs in the liberated Buchenwald concentration camp; his photographs were used as evidence at the Nuremberg Trials. After 1945, he worked for the Bethlehem Steel Corporation. He moved to Florida and worked as a dispatcher for the company Jet Avion near Miami, where he lived with his wife and son. After his wife’s death in the late 1990s, he returned to Bethlehem. He died in a retirement home in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Members of the Signal Photographic Companies served in a total of 11 special units of the United States Army Signal Corps and documented the war in photographs and film. From the beginning of August 1944, they accompanied General Patton’s 3rd Army in small units through France, Belgium, and Germany. In addition to military activities, they primarily photographed images of the horrors of war and Nazi crimes. The photographs are now in the National Archives, Washington. | |
| Image Filename | wwii0623.jpg |
| Image Size | 480.60 KB |
| Image Dimensions | 2200 x 2151 |
| Photographer | Walter Chichersky |
| Photographer Title | United States Army Signal Corps |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | April 16, 1945 |
| Location | Konzentrationslager Buchenwald |
| City | Weimar |
| State or Province | Thuringia |
| Country | Germany |
| Archive | National Archives and Records Administration |
| Record Number | 111-SC-20 34 70-S |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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