The Allied liberation of the various camps occurred at different times, although the Germans did not capitulate until May 8 1945. On the eastern front in Poland, the Soviets had liberated Majdanek in July 1944, but did not reach Stutthof in the north until May 1945. On the western front, the Americans liberated Buchenwald on April 11 1945, but the Soviets only reached Mauthausen in May. (For a detailed timeline of the Liberation, see the Holocaust Timeline.)

Bodies of Jews murdered at Dachau

When the Allied liberators entered the camps, they simply stood aghast in horror. What they saw were huge piles of corpses, mass graves, warehouses piled high with clothing, personal belongings and cut human hair. The emaciated and starving camp inmates looked like walking skeletons. As General Dwight Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, commented:

"The things I saw beggar description…I made the visit deliberately, in order to be in a position to give first-hand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to 'propaganda'".

At the end of the war, there were an estimated 1 500 000 Jews left in Europe, the majority in Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, France, Italy and the Low Countries. The German surrender meant their salvation, but also the dawning of awareness of the tragic extent of their losses.

Prisoners after liberation at Buchenwald

For many survivors of the concentration camps, liberation had come too late. The ravages of camp life, compounded by the ordeal of the Death Marches, left survivors in such a debilitated state that many thousands died in the weeks just prior to liberation and immediately following it. At Bergen-Belsen alone, 13 000 Jews died after the camp was liberated, despite the devoted attention of the British medical team there. In many camps, compassionate Allied troops gave food to starving survivors, unaware that troop rations were too rich for their weakened digestive systems. Thousands of people died as a result of eating foods like chocolate, meat and sugar, too soon.

With nothing more than the miserable rags they stood in, all the survivors needed I.D. documents to act as proof of their existence. These were issued by the liberators, local police, repatriation offices of various nations represented in the camps, partisans or any group or person who claimed authority. I.D. documents allowed the survivors to commence the next stage of their journey.