John Mcmaus 'Hell Before Their Very Eyes': An Analysis

While concentration camps were well known of during World War II, much of the world was ignorant to the harsh realities of the camps. Unfortunately, the experiences of the liberators were far from anything anyone could have ever expected. In Hell Before Their Very Eyes, John C. McManus writes about the first-hand experiences of the liberators of the Ohrdruf, Buchenwald, and Dachau concentration camps and how these experiences influenced the liberators outlooks on the Germans and the war.
On April 4, 1945 the Ohrdruf camp was approached by the 4th Armored and 89th Infantry divisions. Ohrdruf had been hastily evacuated and left behind were a few barely living inmates, the traumatized bodies of the concentration camp, and the smell of death. Lieutenant Colonel Albin Irzyk – who believed he had been hardened by combat – “could not accept that that human beings could have such utter and

A week after liberating Ohrdruf, liberators were approaching Buchenwald. The overpowering stench and sights of the grotesque camp weakened soldiers to the point of tears and vomiting. Lieutenant Colonel Jim Moncrief explained that although he had become accustomed to seeing death, he “had never seen walking death.” (McManus 43) Still yet to come was the liberation of Dachau. Upon the approach of Dachau, liberators came across the “death train.” The death train was a train the Nazis utilized to transport inmates as American forces approached Buchenwald in early April. On the train, hundreds of people with no space died from starvation, exposure, and disease. A Buchenwald survivor named Pierre Verheye wrote about the train, explaining the cars were filled with “dead bodies, bodily wastes, and dirty clothes with