Map of Liberated Camps
As Allied troops moved across Europe
in a series of offensives against Nazi Germany, they
began to encounter and liberate concentration camps. Troops first found camp survivors, many
of whom had survived death marches into the
interior of Germany. Soviet forces were the
first to approach a major Nazi camp, reaching Majdanek near Lublin, Poland, in July 1944. Surprised
by the rapid Soviet advance, the Germans attempted
to demolish the camp in an effort to hide
the evidence of mass murder.
The Soviets
liberated major Nazi camps at Auschwitz, Stutthof, Sachsenhausen,
and Ravensbruck. U.S. forces liberated Buchenwald, Dora-Mittelbau,
Flossenburg, Dachau,
and Mauthausen. British forces liberated camps in northern
Germany, including Neuengamme and Bergen-Belsen.
Sources: U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
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