Liberation ‘45 Series

Clockwise from top left: prisoners at Buchenwald during roll call; celebration at Dachau as US troops liberate the camp; prisoners at Ohrdruf pose with a US soldier; female prisoners in Bergen-Belsen during liberation; a group of women during the liberation of Ravensbrück. All images courtesy of USHMM.

April 2024 marks the 79th anniversary of the liberation of numerous camps within Nazi-occupied countries. The first camp to be liberated was Majdanek, located in Lublin, Poland. Soviet forces liberated Majdanek on 29 July 1944. The liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau followed six months later in January 1945. As Nazi Germany became further enveloped by Allied forces, a wave of liberation would soon follow in the spring of 1945, with a large number of extermination, forced labour and concentration camps being liberated in April 1945.

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