Prisoner at Dachau 1

Born: Unknown, Unknown

This is a detail from a photograph of three men who were prisoners at Dachau, a concentration camp in Germany, established in 1933 by the Nazi government. At first most of the prisoners were political opponents of the Nazi regime. Over time, other groups were also interned there, including Jehovah's Witnesses, Roma, homosexuals and those considered "asocial," many of whom were mentally ill or disabled. When the persecution of Jewish people increased in 1938, the number of Jewish prisoners at Dachau rose.

After Kristallnacht, a night of widespread violence against Jewish people throughout Germany, Austria, and parts of Czechoslovakia, more than 10,000 Jewish men were imprisoned there. Dachau was a training center for SS concentration camp guards, and it became a model for all Nazi concentration camps. Prisoners at Dachau who were considered too sick or weak to work were killed by SS guards or sent to another camp to be killed. Others were subjected to horrific medical experiments. They were injected with deadly diseases, forced to drink saltwater that could kill them, and left in extreme cold conditions, which led to hypothermia. Hundreds of prisoners died or were permanently disabled as a result of these experiments.

American forces liberated Dachau on April 29, 1945. Near the camp, they found more than 30 railroad cars filled with bodies. The three men in the photo are standing in the barracks immediately after being liberated. We don't know any of their names.