| Original caption: “Two soldiers look into a truck containing about 40 bodies at the Buchenwald Concentration Camp.” Nazis ran out of coal and were unable to cremate bodies of dead inmates. Many of the bodies on this heap show bullet holes through the head or evidence of the skull being crushed in with a large ball bat which was used in the death chambers for such executions. The crematorium had troughs leading to the furnace doors allowed for sliding the bodies into the brick furnaces. According to 1 United States Army report, Buchenwald’s ovens could incinerate up to 400 bodies in a 10-hour period. The Schutzstaffel (SS) had actually devised a clear-cut method to dispose of the bodies of their victims. After roll call each evening, prisoners were ordered to collect and strip the bodies of anyone who had died in the previous 24-hour period. A truck or wagon then circled the camp to pick up the bodies and haul them to the front yard of the incinerator plant. Prisoners hauled the bodies into the building, extracted any remaining valuables such as gold teeth, and then shoved the remains into the ovens. “The floor of each incinerator consisted of a coarse grate through which the boneash fell into an ashpit about sixteen inches deep,” the report stipulated. Directly below the ovens was a torture chamber, the floor and walls of which consisted of cool cement. The walls were equipped with sturdy rows of meat hooks on which the SS hung and beat rebellious prisoners. 1 survivor told Herman Cole (November 27, 1923 — July 23, 2012), a medic from the 44th Infantry Battalion, 6th Armored Division, that “some were hung on the meat hooks to die while others were being cremated.” On these frequent occasions when the Nazis strangled, tortured, or beat their victims to death, the bodies were immediately and easily disposed. “An electric elevator, with an estimated capacity of eighteen bodies, ran up to the Incinerator Room, which was directly above the Strangling Room.” From the testimony of liberated prisoners, the soldiers learned that in March a coal shortage had forced the guards to shut down the ovens for 10 days. In the interval some 1,800 bodies accumulated in the yard outside the incinerator. At the same time, the weather warmed. The rising number of dead bodies combined with the warmth exacerbated the already insufferable stench permeating the area. Instead of waiting to cremate the bodies, SS guards organized a work party of prisoners to gather the corpses and bury them in a huge communal pit in the forest outside the camp. When the job was finished, the SS simply shot the members of the work party, threw them in the pit, and hastily covered their remains with dirt. Even though a new coal supply allowed for the resumption of cremations, so many prisoners were dying that, by the time the Americans arrived at Buchenwald, corpses were still stacked up, awaiting incineration. The Americans estimated that about 120 bodies were still “parked in a truck in the front yard.” The terrible sight of these bodies, so unceremoniously and anonymously packed together on this truck—or wagon, really—was heavily photographed by many soldiers and remains 1 of the most infamous images associated with Buchenwald. The ovens themselves still contained some remnants of the people they had devoured. “The incinerator grates had not yet been cleared of un-consumed hip-bone joints and parts of skulls,” an American observer later wrote. | |
| Image Filename | wwii0578.jpg |
| Image Size | 139.16 KB |
| Image Dimensions | 1088 x 843 |
| Photographer | Ardean R. Miller III |
| Photographer Title | United States Army Signal Corps |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | April 18, 1945 |
| Location | Konzentrationslager Buchenwald |
| City | Weimar |
| State or Province | Thuringia |
| Country | Germany |
| Archive | National Archives and Records Administration |
| Record Number | 111-SC-C-41 |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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