Lettera sull’Olocausto della Seconda Guerra Mondiale digitata da un militare americano poco dopo aver visitato il campo di concentramento di Buchenwald. Parla degli orrori che ha visto nel campo. Informazioni nei commenti. [OC]

This letter was typed by a U.S. Serviceman named Merle. He was serving with the 75th Finance Disbursing Center. The letter was typed on a German Stationary he had captured. The letter reads:

“ Somewhere in Germany”
April 22nd, 1945

For the Folks in Cullom, Plano & Pittsburgh:

Dear Folks:

Well, on yesterdays mail I got two letters from Mother, but one turned out to be clippings from the Cullom paper and the other Aunt Kates letter, they were mail from Cullom April 4th.

Think in my last letter I told you about most of our boys getting to visit a Nazi Concentration Camp. Well, since then we have had the occasion to see another one, and this one was much larger. It was the notorious “Buchenwald Concentration Camp” and is just a little way out of Weimar, Germany. When the American Tanks took it over, I think there was something like 80,000 prisoners there, mostly Russians, Pole’s, and Czechoslovakians. There was also about 800 small boys from about 12 to 14 years old. There was barbwire all around the camp and most of the barracks were small wooden buildings and then there were a few large stone barracks.

We found a Russian who could talk American and he showed us around the place. I can tell you it is a place that you wouldn’t care to spent too much time at. Ha. It was located near a large woods and on the side of a hill. There was as many as 1000 in one of the small barracks, which were more like a barn than anything else. Many of the prisoners were still black and blue from their treatment. On their arms they had a tattoo showing their number, and on the front of their clothes they had a large F if they were French or an R if they were Russian. They had two places out in the open where they hung the prisoners, and down in the building where they had the crematory there were bodies stacked up just like Cord-Wood and one truck with about 50 more out side of the building.

Don’t know if you can imagine what a sight that many nude bodies make. The Germans worked most of these prisoners in a nearby factory and when they got to a point that they couldn’t work any longer, they really took care of them. When you read accounts of such things in your papers back home you can take my word for it that it is very, very true. They have moved in our American hospitals to take care of many of the worst cases, but it is really a job as some of these people have no homes to go to and have not heard from their families for years.

I understand that we made all the civilians in the near-by town walk out and see just what had been going on out there. In taking over the place, they found that many of the Germans had lampshades, bookbindings and other ornaments made from the skin of Nazi victims who died in Buchenwald. “They were sort of a fad which was started by the wife of the prison commandant”. There was one piece of skin from a man’s chest mounted on a board, which had a tattooed picture on it.

We talked to one Czech boy who said that if the Americans had been two hours later getting there he wouldn’t have been alive. Many of the people there were either political prisoners or professors, from these many countries. Guess you can see what a scientific War the Germans were running.

We are all OK and going along in good shape.

Love,
Merle. “

Unfortunately I don’t have any additional information on Merle.

Overall, 56,545 people were killed at Buchenwald.

One for the holocaust deniers.

Reading this made me sick to the stomach to even begin to imagine the horrors those poor prisoners endured. And the incomprehension of how a human being could take sport in flaying another and displaying their skin as part of their furniture.

!! Warning: you’ll see disturbing content, like written in the letter. !! I found this a few days ago: https://youtu.be/mgwWq2cp2qM

Thank you for posting this.

[Wikipedia article on the KZ Buchenwald](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buchenwald_concentration_camp)

My grandfather was an inmate in Gross-Rosen and later (death marches) in Buchenwald. I remember that after the war he traveled to Germany as a witness in trials for pseudo-medical experiments. I wish I talked more about it with him when I still had a chance.

Awful for everyone

Horrific and to think that this killing on an industrial scale is happening right now

damn the grammar isnt the best in this one lol