Dachau

Written by the staff of the U.S. 7th Army soon after its liberation, this report stands as evidence of some of the worst crimes of the Holocaust. The images contained within also document the inhuman suffering inflicted at Dachau. Dachau, 1933-1945, will stand for all time as one of history's most gruesome symbols of inhumanity. There our troops found sights, sounds, and stenches horrible beyond belief, cruelties so enormous as to be incomprehensible to the normal mind. Dachau and death were synonymous. No words or pictures can carry the full impact of these unbelievable scenes. However, this report presents some of the outstanding facts and photographs in order to emphasize the type of crime that elements of the SS committed thousands of times a day, as a reminder of the ghastly capabilities of certain classes of men, to strengthen the determination that they and their works shall vanish from the earth. The sections comprising this report were prepared by the agencies indicated. They remain substantially as they were originally submitted in the belief that to consolidate this material in a single literary style would seriously weaken its realism.