Harrowing Photos Showing The Reality of The Death Camps at The End of WWII

By | February 8, 2017

In the spring of 1945, photos and witness accounts from the liberation of camps like Bergen-Belsen provided the disbelieving world outside of Europe its first glimpse into the abyss of Nazi depravity.

The photos below were taken by LIFE photographer George Rodger in April 1945 when he accompanied the British 11th Armoured Division (the fabled “Black Bull”) into the camp...

German boy walking down a dirt road lined w. the corpses of hundreds of prisoners who have died of starvation nr. Bergen xtermination camp.
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British doctor using DDT while delousing newly freed female prisoners at the Bergen Belsen concentration camp.
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Female prisoners in the newly liberated Bergen Belsen concentration camp.
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Female prisoners sifiting through garbage for food at the recently liberated Bergen Belsen concentration camp.
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Portrait of Magdalene Kessal, 25, a domestic servant who served as SS girl at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
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New internees of the freshly liberated Bergen Belsen concentration camp includ this pair of French brothers, Charles and Louis Perret, wearing white boots they took from the Germans.
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German guard being forced to put bodies of prisoners into a mass grave at the Bergen Belsen concentration camp.
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British doctor administers delousing treatment of DDT up the skirt of an embarrased looking female prisoner who is among the 60,000 prisoners just released from Bergen Belsen concentration camp after its liberation by Allied forces.
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Weak and dying prisoners stretch out on dirt bank behind Bergen Belsen barracks after the concentration camp was liberated by Allied troops.
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German SS soldier who passed out from carrying corpses being carried by two others at the Bergen Belsen concentration camp.
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Female SS soldiers filling mass grave w. corpses while under guard by British soldiers at the Bergen Belsen concentration camp.
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Corpses lying on ground at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
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Liberated women at concentration camp prepare for DDT dusting against vermin.
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Dead and dying prisoners at the newly liberated Bergen Belsen concentration camp.
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Annalese Kohlmann, former Nazi female guard noted for her cruelty, now a prisoner in the recently liberated Bergen Belsen concentration camp.
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Male & female German SS soldiers being forced to load corpses onto trucks under British guard at the Bergen Belsen concentration camp.
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British doctors using DDT to delouse newly liberated prisoners at the Bergen Belsen concentration camp.
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Newly liberated prisoners waiting on line for food at the Bergen Belsen concentration camp.
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Newly liberated prisoners at the Bergen Belsen concentration camp lining up for food shortly after Allied forces overran the area.
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Female German camp guards being forced to unload truck full of the bodies of deceased priosners at the Bergen Belsen concentration camp.
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Body of a dead inmate of the Bergen Belsen concentration camp shortly after the liberation of the camp by Allied troops.
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Photos: George Rodger—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images via Vintag.es