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Time Capsule Tales@timecaptales · Dec 27, 2024

On January 27, 1945, Soviet troops liberated Auschwitz & the 7,000 starving prisoners inside This was the first…

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Summary

On January 27, 1945, Soviet troops liberated Auschwitz concentration camp, discovering approximately 7,000 starving survivors and the horrifying evidence of the systematic murder of over 1 million people, including 200,000 children. Soviet soldiers documented the emaciated prisoners, mass graves, gas chambers, crematoria, and personal effects left behind by the Nazis, which fully revealed the Holocaust's horrors to the world.

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    On January 27, 1945, Soviet troops liberated Auschwitz & the 7,000 starving prisoners inside This was the first time that the horrors of the Holocaust were fully revealed to the world Here is what the Soviets found in Auschwitz, where over 1 million were murdered Thread 🧵

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    1. "We saw emaciated, tortured, impoverished people,” Soviet soldier Ivan Martynushkin recalled Martynushkin added: "It was hard to watch them. I remember their faces, especially their eyes which betrayed their ordeal."

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    2. Because Nazi troops had hastily evacuated Auschwitz as the Soviets approached, mostly children, the gravely ill, and those who'd managed to hide remained at the camp.

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    3. An estimated 200,000 children were murdered at Auschwitz during World War II.

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    4. Ten-year-old twins Eva & Miriam Mozes, in the front of the frame holding hands, remembered that the day Auschwitz was liberated started out strangely quiet.

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    5. Soviet soldiers of the First Ukrainian Front with liberated prisoners at Auschwitz. "They apparently figured out who we were and began to welcome us," Martynushkin remembered, "to signal that they knew who we were and that we shouldn’t be afraid of them - that there were no guards or Germans behind the barbed wire. Only prisoners."

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    6. Prisoners beneath the infamous "Arbeit Macht Frei" ("Work Sets You Free") sign at Auschwitz.

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    7. Soviet troops came across horrific sights when they arrived at Auschwitz, including bodies lying out in the open. Six hundred people had been hastily shot by the Nazis and left unburied as they fleed.

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    8. The bodies of women & children found during the liberation of Auschwitz. “My memories from there have stayed with me all my life," Aleksander Vorontsov, who was part of a film crew who captured some of the horror the troops found at Auschwitz, remembered. "All of that was the most moving and horrific thing that I filmed during the war."

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    9. Troops also came across haunting reminders of the 1.1 million people who'd been murdered at Auschwitz, including 44,000 pairs of shoes, eyeglasses, luggage, and 8 tons of human hair from prisoners

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    10. An empty barrack after the liberation of Auschwitz.

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    11. A crematorium at Auschwitz. Bodies were brought from the gas chamber and burned.

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    12. Most of those who had managed to survive Auschwitz were gravely ill and had been left behind by the Nazis to die.

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    13. A 15-year-old Russian boy named Ivan Dudnik is rescued after the liberation of Auschwitz. He was captured and sent to the camp by the Nazis, and he went insane from the horrors he witnessed there.

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    14. A survivor after the liberation of Auschwitz.

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    15. German civilians look upon the bodies of Jewish prisoners after the liberation of Auschwitz. Allied troops brought them into cities to prove that stories about the camp were not propaganda.

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    16. Auschwitz after liberation. Today, the infamous concentration camp is a museum and memorial.

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    Another thread on a dark part of history

    Time Capsule Tales@timecaptales · Dec 28, 2024

    Leopold II of Belgium ruled the Congo Free State from 1885–1908 He exploited the land for ivory & rubber using forced labor His reign became infamous for brutal policies of terror & mutilation 10+ million died This is the grim story of King Leopold II's reign... (thread 🧵)