Battleland

“Staring Out at Their Allied Rescuers”

  • Share
  • Read Later
Margaret Bourke-White / LIFE

Survivors gaze at photographer Margaret Bourke-White and rescuers from the United States 3rd Army during the liberation of Buchenwald, April 1945.

Buchenwald, the infamous World War II concentration camp operated by Nazi Germany, was liberated by General George Patton’s 3rd Army 68 years ago this week.

Our colleagues at Life have collected some of the timeless images made there and then by photographer Margaret Bourke-White.

It’s important to see these pictures again for the first time every once in awhile, to be reminded anew of the evil that can exist among us.

Notes Life.com editor Ben Cosgrove:

Some photographs are so much of their time that, as years pass, they acquire an air of genuine authority — about an event, a person, a place — and even, perhaps, of inevitability. This is what it was like, these pictures tell us. This is what happened. This is the moment. This is what must be remembered.

Remember them here.