UNDILUTED HISTORY AND FACTS

THE CAMP AS EVIDENCE THE GATHERING OF EVIDENCE The first U.S. Army photographers reached the camp three days after the liberation of Buchenwald on 11 April 1945. The pictures they took were published all over the world and have continued to shape the public’s image of the concentration and extermination camps to this day. They also came to serve as evidence of the National Socialist crimes. The war correspondents were as shocked as the American soldiers by the conditions they discovered in Buchenwald. Margaret Bourke-White, who worked for Life Magazine, later recalled: “I kept telling myself that I would believe the indescribably horrible sight in the courtyard before me only when I had a chance to look at my own photographs. Using the camera was almost a relief; it interposed a slight barrier between myself and the white horror in front of me.” In addition to press photographers, army photographers from the 166th Signal Photo Company were at work in Buchenwald. The pictures take...