17 May 1945

[Germans (including children) forced to look at dead bodies in camps, mostly Buchenwald where they had to walk 4 miles. The question here is why didn't the Russians open Auschwitz for the word to see the alleged horrors of the 'gas chambers'? In Buchenwald there didn't seem to be that many bodies around, just some stacked up for the crematorium that they put on a trailer.]

10 June. German civilians listen to their Burgomeister, Karl Schmidt, a former inmate of Buchenwald camp, as he speaks at the graves of 56 prisoners of Buchenwald who were executed by their Nazi guards when they fell out on a march of 1.400 men east from Buchenwald to escape the advancing Americans. The civilians of the town of Saalberg, Germany, were forced to give the bodies a decent burial in a central section of the town.

17 May 1945. German women of Namering ordered by Military Government with Third Army to view bodies of 800 murdered Russians, Czechs and French who were inmates of Flossenberg prison camp. Bodies were exhumed by townspeople of Namering from stream bank and reburied.

Men at left are Nazi soldiers freed from P.w. Enclosure and ordered to stand at attention for 30 minutes when they walked at viewing.

17 May. The sign reads: "Here lie 800 murdered bodies killed by the Nazis of Namering, Germany in april 1945". German civilians of town read sign during visit to see bodies of exhumed victims on order of Military Government of U.S. Third Army.

17 May. German men and women of Namering dig new graves for the bodies of 800 murdered Russians, Czechs and French whose bodies were found near stream bank outside town. Nazis are charged with the mass murder of the victims, former inmates in the Flossenberg concentration camp. http://www.buchenwald.de

17 May. German lad among children ordered by U.S. Military Government with Third Army to view bodies of 800 murdered Russians, Czechs and French who were inmates of Flossenberg concentration camp. Bodies were exhumed by townspeople of Nasmering from stream bank and reburied.

17 May. German child with women gazes at body of one of the 800 murdered Russians, Poles and Czechs whose bodies were exhumed near Namering on order of Military Government of U.S. Third Army. Victims were formerly held in Flossenberg concentration camp.

Life magazine photographer Margaret Bourke-White prepares to take a photograph of a wagon piled with corpses in the newly liberated Buchenwald concentration camp.

Lieutenant Colonel Parke O. Yingst was born in Hummelstown, PA in 1908. In 1930 he graduated from the Colorado School of Mines and joined the Army Corps of Engineers as a reservist. He subsequently went to work in Venezuela. During this period, his reserve commission expired. After returning to the United States in 1940, Yingst applied for recommissioning so that he could join the fight against Hitler. In 1942 he was ordered to active duty as a First Lieutenant in the Army Corps of Engineers. On April 4, 1944 he was promoted to Major, and in July, he assumed command of the 281st Engineer Combat Battalion. In April 1945 Yingst was present at the liberation of the Ohrdruf and Buchenwald concentration camps. He was eventually promoted to Lieutenant Colonel prior to his separation from the army for medical reasons.
Photographed by Colonel Parke O. Yingst. Buchenwald, [Thuringia] Germany, April 1945. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.