APRIL

April 11: Americans Liberate Buchenwald

Thousands of Jewish prisoners who survived the death marches began to reach Buchenwald in early 1945. However, as the American forces advanced through Germany, an evacuation of the prisoners in this camp began. About 25,000 inmates-Jews and members of other nationalities-perished at the time of the evacuation, but the Nazis’ scheme failed because successful actions by the prisoners’ underground, such as obstructing SS orders over the radio, sabotaged and considerably slowed the evacuation process.

On April 11, 1945, American forces liberated 21,000 prisoners at Buchenwald and its sub-camps. Some 4,000 of them were Jews, including 1,000 children and teenagers.

Two years later, an American tribunal handed down sentences to 31 members of the camp staff-two to death, and four to life in prison.