Four thousand Jewish men and 500 women are among 15,000 former inmates of the dread Dechau concentration camp who were liberated here by the U. S. 36th Infantry Division. For five days-they had marched without any food, or travelled in jammed “death trains.” Hundreds of Jews and non-Jews died along the road or in the open railroad cars.
Survivers of the trains told how when the S. S. guards, fearful of being captured by the advancing Americans, deserted the trains, they jumped off at wayside villages, One group described how the S. S. men told them they were free and they deshed from the train, overrunning a naiphbering village. But after a few hours, units of the local volksturm appeared and began shooting, killing about 200 before U. S. advance elements arrived.
Thousands of liberated prisoners are wandering along the hillsides here, unhoused and unfed, their hardships increased by the recent snow fall. The halted trains which still contained prisoners were emptied of their living occupants, while a layer of bony bodies of these who died cover the floor.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
