Prisoners Who Were Killed Pictures of the Holocaust

When the Allies liberated the Nazi concentration camps near the end of World War II, they found dead bodies everywhere. The Nazis, unable to destroy all the evidence of the horrors perpetrated in the concentration camps, left corpses on trains, in barracks, outside, in mass graves, and disgustingly, even in a latrine. These pictures are a witness to the horrors perpetrated during the Holocaust.

Being Carried in Carts

British Army truck transporting corpses to mass graves for burial. (Bergen-Belsen) (April 28, 1945). Picture from the National Archives, courtesy of USHMM Photo Archives.

• Wagon loaded with corpses intended for burial in Buchenwald
• British Army truck transporting corpses to mass graves for burial
• Austrian civilians load corpses onto a cart
• U.S. troops watch a passing cart laden with corpses
• Railway cars loaded with the corpses of prisoners who died on route

Individuals

Jews, on their way out of the city of Kiev to the Babi Yar ravine, pass corpses lying on the street. (September 29, 1941). Picture from the Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, courtesy of USHMM Photo Archives.

• An American soldier stands above the corpses of children that are to be buried in a mass grave
• The corpse of Abraham Borenstein lies in the foreground after his execution by the SS at Dachau
• The dead body of a prisoner lies on the floor between rows of bunks
• Jews, on their way out of the city of Kiev to the Babi Yar ravine, pass corpses lying on the street

In Piles or Rows

Survivors counting the corpses of prisoners killed in the Mauthausen concentration camp. (May 5-10, 1945). Picture from the Pauline M. Bower Collection, courtesy of USHMM Photo Archives.

• American soldiers walk past rows of corpses
• American troops view the charred remains of corpses
• Survivors counting the corpses of prisoners killed in Mauthausen
• American troops examine corpses found in the latrine of the Woebbelin concentration camp
• American troops are shown a stack of corpses lying outside of the crematorium of Buchenwald
• Corpses in the Woebbelin concentration camp
• Two survivors lie among corpses on the floor of the "Boelke Kaserne"
• Two American soldiers view scores of dead bodies in a barracks
• Corpses of women piled up on the floor of Block 11
• Corpses in block 11 of Auschwitz
• SS officer Eichelsdoerfer, the commandant of the Kaufering IV concentration camp, stands among the corpses of prisoners killed in his camp

Civilians Forced to Witness or Bury

 American soldiers of the U.S. 7th Army, force boys believed to be Hitler youth, to examine boxcars containing bodies of prisoners starved to death by the SS. (April 30, 1945). Picture from the National Archives, courtesy of USHMM Photo Archives.

• German civilians view corpses of prisoners in the Woebbelin concentration camp
• German civilians from the town of Nordhausen bury the corpses in mass graves
• German civilians are forced to see the results of crimes committed by the SS in Buchenwald
• Boys believed to be Hitler youth forced to examine boxcars
• Germans exhume corpses from a mass grave
• Austrian citizens remove corpses from the Russian camp section of Mauthausen
• Austrian civilians dig mass graves for corpses found in Gusen

American Officials and Press Visit

 Congressman John M. Vorys(right) viewing a room full of corpses while on an inspection of the Dachau concentration camp. The group of touring congressmen was led by General Wilson B. Parsons who stands to the left in this photograph. (May 3, 1945). Picture from the Marvin Edwards Collection, courtesy of USHMM Photo Archives.

• Gen. Dwight Eisenhower and other U.S. Army officers view the bodies of executed prisoners
• Group of American editors and publishers in Dachau are shown the corpses of prisoners
• Congressman John M. Vorys viewing a room full of corpses while on an inspection of Dachau

Mass Graves

 A mass grave in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. (May 1, 1945). Picture from the Arnold Bauer Barach Collection, courtesy of USHMM Photo Archives.

• Mass grave in Bergen-Belsen
• Prisoners' corpses from Nordhausen lying in a mass grave
• Prisoners' bodies laid out in a mass grave in Mauthausen
• German policeman shoots individual Jewish women who remain alive in the ravine after a mass execution