Wooden screen hides Dachau gas
chamber wall
Bodies of SS soldiers
on the left, naked bodies of prisoners on the right
The photograph above was taken by the
US Army in May 1945, a few days after the liberation of the camp.
It shows a wooden screen in front of the east wall of Baracke
X. The screen is 16 feet long and extends 6 feet out from the
wall. There is no roof over the area behind the screen. Hidden
by this screen are the two bins through which the Nazis poured
Zyklon-B gas pellets through the wall onto the floor of the gas
chamber. The prisoners' barracks were located behind the camera
but Baracke X was hidden from the inmates by a line of poplar
trees. In spite of all this secrecy, the inmates knew that Dachau
was a death factory and they informed the American liberators
and the press about the infamous gas chamber. The fact that the
Nazis were murdering millions of Jews in gas chambers was already
known throughout the world, as early as June 1942, when the BBC
in England began broadcasting this news.
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