00:00A group of survivors had taken control of the camp from the few remaining Nazi guards.
00:19The four-man team was under linguist Hugh Montgomery and included Corporal Rick Carrier.
00:26Montgomery recalled the survivors made a final request please give the guards to us and we'll take care of them and I'm sure they did that gave me chills that's fucking great.
00:41Montgomery later joined the CIA and took part in Operation Gold in Berlin.
00:47On April 4th, 1945, the U.S. 89th Infantry Division overran Oldruf, a sub camp of Buchenwald.
00:57Buchenwald was partially evacuated by the Germans from the 6th to 11th of April 1945.
01:05In the days before the arrival of the American army, thousands of the prisoners were forcibly evacuated on foot.
01:13Thanks in large part to the efforts of Polish engineer, shortwave radio amateur Gwydan Domażanina, an inmate since March 1941.
01:23A secret shortwave transmitter and small generator were built and hidden in the prisoners' movie room.
01:30That is so cool!
01:33On April 8th, at noon, Domażan and Russian prisoner Konstantina Ivanovich Leonov sent the Morse code message prepared by leaders of the prisoners' underground resistance.
01:46Supposedly, Walter Bartel and Harry Kuhn.
01:49To the Allies, to the Army of General Patton, this is the Buchenwald Concentration Camp.
01:55SOS, we request help.
01:57The SS wants to destroy us.
02:00The text was repeated several times in English, German, and Russian.
02:05Domażan sent the English and German transmissions while Leonov sent the Russian version.
02:12Three minutes after the last transmission was sent by Domażanin, the headquarters of the U.S. 3rd Army responded.
02:19KC, hold out. Rushing to your aid. Staff of 3rd Army.
02:24According to Teofil Wiedek, a fellow Polish prisoner who witnessed the transmissions, Domażanin fainted after receiving the message.
02:34As American forces closed in, Gestapo headquarters at Weimar telephoned the camp administration to announce that it was sending explosives to blow up any evidence of the camp, including its inmates.
02:49The Gestapo did not know that the administrators had already fled.
02:55A prisoner answered the phone and informed headquarters that explosives would not be needed, as the camp had already been blown up, which was not true.
03:05A detachment of troops of the U.S. 9th Armored Infantry Battalion from the 6th Armored Division, part of the U.S. 3rd Army, and under the command of Captain Frederick Keffer, arrived at Buchenwald on April 11th, 1945, at 3.15 p.m.
03:21Now the permanent time of the clock at the entrance gate.
03:51The soldiers were given a hero's welcome, with the emaciated survivors finding the strength to toss some liberators into the air in celebration.
04:04Later in the day, elements of the U.S. 83rd Infantry Division overran Langensteine, one of a number of smaller camps.
04:22Later in the day, elements of the U.S. 83rd Infantry Division overran Langensteine, one of a number of smaller camps.
04:33comprising the Buchenwald complex.
04:36There, the division liberated over 21,000 prisoners, ordered the mayor of Langensteine to send food and water to the camp, and hurried medical supplies forward from the 20th Field Hospital.
04:50The
11:03Scott Wagner once said,
11:05The Jew is the demon behind the corruption of mankind.
11:14And these pictures prove it.
11:33General Eisenhower is now giving each victim as he dies a reverent burial.
11:46In some places, German civilians have been compelled to remove the bodies from more recent pits
11:52and help give them individual burial.
11:55In other cases, it's only possible to dig large trenches
11:59in which to inter the vast number of dead found in the camps.
12:04Here again, German civilians are forced to do the digging.
12:08In some camps, I'm told, liberated slaves turned against their guards and attacked their quarters.
12:21In some camps, I'm told, liberated slaves turned against their guards and attacked their quarters.
12:33Pictorial evidence of the almost unprecedented crimes perpetrated by the Nazis
12:51at the Buchenwald concentration camp.
12:53The story in written form is contained in the official report of the prisoner of war
12:57and displaced persons division of the United States Group Control Council,
13:01which has been forwarded from Supreme Allied Headquarters to the War Department in Washington.
13:06It states that 1,000 boys under 14 years of age are included among the 20,000 still alive at the camp,
13:12that the survivors are males only, and that the recent death rate was about 200 a day.
13:18One of the weapons used by SS guards.
13:31The body disposal plant.
13:33Inside are the ovens which gave the crematorium a maximum disposal capacity
13:37of about 400 bodies per 10-hour day.
13:40Gold-filled teeth were extracted from bodies before incineration.
13:44The ovens of extremely modern design and heated by Coke were made by a concern
13:48which customarily manufactures baking ovens.
13:51The firm's name is clearly inscribed.
13:59All bodies were finally reduced to bone ash.
14:031,200 civilians walked from the neighboring city of Weimar to begin a forced tour of the camp.
14:13There are many smiling faces, and according to observers,
14:16at first the Germans act as though this was something being staged for their benefit.
14:33One of the first things that the German civilians see as they reach the interior of the camp
14:47is the parchment display.
14:49On a table for all to gaze upon is a lampshade made of human skin,
14:53made at the request of an SS officer's wife.
14:56Large pieces of skin have been used for painting pictures, many of an obscene nature.
15:01There are two heads which have been shrunk to one-fifth their normal size.
15:20These and other exhibits of Nazi origin are shown to the townspeople.
15:24The stench, filth, and misery defied description.
15:33They see the result of lack of care in the bad case of Trenchfoot.
15:40Other evidences of horror, brutality, and human indecency are shown,
15:56and these people are compelled to see what their own government had perpetrated.
16:01What kind of
16:28Jewish home life reveals remarkable lack of creative ability to civilize.
16:41In plain language, Jewish dwellings are filthy and neglected.
16:53In plain language, Jewish dwellings are very good.
17:16I don't know.
17:46The guard towers, the barbed wire fences, the foundations of barracks that once held
18:01people in the most unimaginable conditions.
18:06We saw the memorial to all the survivors, a steel plate, as Chancellor Merkel said,
18:12that is heated to 37 degrees Celsius, the temperature of the human body, a reminder where people
18:20were deemed inhuman because of their differences, of the mark that we all share.
18:26Now, these sites have not lost their horror with the passage of time.
18:30As we were walking up, Ellie said, if these trees could talk, and there's a certain irony
18:37about the beauty of the landscape and the horror that took place here.
18:45More than half a century later, our grief and our outrage over what happened have not diminished.
18:50I will not forget what I have seen here today.
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