As Allied and Soviet troops moved across Europe in a series of offensives against Nazi Germany, they encountered concentration camps, mass graves, and numerous other sites of Nazi crimes. American soldiers witnessed evidence of the Holocaust and Nazi atrocities as they marched into the interior of Germany, liberating the major concentration camps such as Buchenwald, Dachau, and Mauthausen as well as hundreds of subcamps, including Ohrdruf (a subcamp of Buchenwald). Though the liberation of Nazi camps was not a primary objective of the Allied military campaign, U.S, British, Canadian, and Soviet troops freed prisoners from their SS guards, provided them with food and badly needed medical support, and collected evidence for war crimes trials.

Robert Patton, of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, was with the 65th Infantry Division the day after the liberation of Mauthausen by the 11th Armored Division. In this interview from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Patton describes the camp immediately after liberation and his 2000 visit to the same site.

To learn more about liberation of the Nazi camps, visit the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum at http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/f....