Horrified Allied troops storm into Dachau and mow down SS guards
ENRAGED American troops stormed through the infamous concentration camp at dachau yesterday, spraying bullets among the ss guards after seeing some of the worst scenes of Nazi horror yet uncovered.
scores of guards were mown down. Others were seized as prisoners and marched off at the point of American guns.
hundreds of liberated prisoners — polish, French, Russian and men of various other nationalities — grabbed ss weapons to exact revenge for years of torture and starvation.
Riding tanks, bulldozers, ‘long tom’ guns — anything on wheels — the infantry came in from the north-west and surprised the ss guards shortly after the lunch hour.
thirty thousand men were found living in the camp under truly shocking conditions.
One of the prisoners in the camp claimed to be a son of M. leon Blum, the French former premier. British and American war correspondents who reached the camp were greeted by sights of unimaginable horror.
thirty- nine open railway trucks, such as are used for hauling coal, were standing on a siding, which went through the walls of dachau camp and
‘Come quick, there’s one alive!’
disappeared among the tall pine trees.
At first glance it appeared that the cars were loaded with oiled, dirty clothing.
You looked closer and saw feet, heads and bony fingers. More than half of these cars were full of bodies — there were hundreds.
lt col donald downard, who reached the camp a few minutes before us, was driving along the string of cars in a Jeep when a soldier shouted: ‘come here quick, colonel. there’s one alive.’
downard climbed over the pile of bodies to one man — his neck so small and shrunken it scarcely seemed capable of holding up a head that was little more than skin and skull.
he lifted the man, placed him in the Jeep and carried him to hospital where plasma is keeping him alive.
prisoners with access to records and the inner workings of the camp said 9,000 died of hunger and disease or were shot in the past three months. Four thousand more perished during the cold winter.
typhus is scattered throughout the camp, and the water supply of the city is reported to have been contaminated from 6,000 graves on high ground which drain into the river.
A French general was killed last week as he walked towards a truck, believing he was to be evacuated. ss guards shot him in the back.