Special Report

Horrifying Images of Nazi Death Camps

Hulton Archive / Archive Photos via Getty Images

The disturbing photos of Nazi death camps bring the horrific inhumanity of the Holocaust into sharp focus.

While names like Auschwitz and Buchenwald are infamous, the Nazis established over 44,000 incarceration and extermination sites between 1933-1945. Some were extermination camps designed to kill prisoners, mainly Jews, as efficiently as possible. (These are 20 horrifying images of Auschwitz.)

Others were concentration camps where inmates including Jews, homosexuals, Roma people, and political prisoners were worked or starved to death or subjected to lethal experiments. (Here are 30 symbols used by the Nazis to mark their victims.)

Whatever euphemisms the Nazis used, these camps exemplified the depths of evil to which humanity can sink. Viewing images of the torture, starvation, and slaughter that occurred in them serves as a stark reminder that we must remain vigilant to prevent such atrocities from ever happening again.

With that in mind, 24/7 Tempo reviewed historical photo archives from sources including from Getty Images, Picryl, Wikimedia, and the Library of Congress to compile a list of horrifying images of Nazi death camps.

Click here to see horrifying images of Nazi death camps

Keystone / Hulton Archive via Getty Images

1. Wobbelin concentration camp

A German gravedigger burying victims from Wobbelin concentration camp near Ludwigslust, Germany, after the camp’s liberation in early May 1945.

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Public Domain / Wikimedia Commons via Picryl

2. Female prisoners at Birkenau

Female prisoners at Auschwitz II-Birkenau in Poland in 1944.

Keystone / Hulton Archive via Getty Images

3. Concentration camp sign

A sign outside Auschwitz reading “Halt!” in German and Polish, warning people to stay away from the camp.

Keystone / Hulton Archive via Getty Images

4. Auschwitz

The perimeter fence of Auschwitz.

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Public Domain / Wikimedia Commons via Picryl

5. Sobibor, a death camp in Poland

The Sobibor extermination camp in Poland in summer 1943, where at least 167,000 people were killed between April 1942 and mid-October 1943.

Keystone / Hulton Archive via Getty Images

6. Child Survivors Of Auschwitz

A group of children who survived the camp are photographed upon its liberation by the Red Army in 1945.

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7. Prisoners at Buchenwald

A group of prisoners at the Buchenwald concentration camp, in about 1943.

Three Lions / Hulton Archive via Getty Images

8. Death Camp Beds

Beds at Auschwitz. Sometimes four or five inmates were forced to sleep on a single bunk.

Hulton Archive / Archive Photos via Getty Images

9. Mark of Auschwitz

A former Auschwitz prisoner shows the serial number tattooed on his arm.

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Hulton Archive / Archive Photos via Getty Images

10. Images of Auschwitz

Personal belongings of Auschwitz prisoners are strewn along the train tracks in the snow outside the camp entrance.

Hulton Archive / Hulton Archive via Getty Images

11. Deportees

Deportees with yellow stars sewn to their coats – a sign that they’re Jewish – arrive at Auschwitz.

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Public Domain / Wikimedia Commons

12. An SS Death’s Head Unit at the Bełżec extermination camp

Members of one of the SS Totenkopfverbände, or Death’s Head Units, at Bełżec extermination camp in 1942.

Public Domain / Wikimedia Commons

13. A destroyed Magirus-Deutz van

Found near Kolo, near the Chełmno extermination camp in Poland, this is the type of van converted by the Nazis into a mobile gas chamber, with exhaust fumes diverted into a sealed rear compartment filled with prisoners.

Public Domain / Majdanek Museum via Wikimedia Commons

14. Majdanek

A reconnaissance photograph of the Majdanek concentration camp in Poland, taken on June 24, 1944.

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Public Domain / Unites States Holocaust Museum via Wikimedia Commons

15. Smoke over Majdanek

A view of smoke rising from the Majdanek concentration camp in Poland.

Hulton Archive / Archive Photos via Getty Images

16. Crematorium at Buchenwald

Human remains, including those of an anti-Nazi German woman, found in the crematorium at Buchenwald when it was liberated in April 1945.

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U.S. Army / Archive Photos via Getty Images

17. Belsen burials

SS troopers load the corpses of inmates of the Belsen concentration camp onto a truck for burial in a common grave.

Three Lions / Hulton Archive via Getty Images

18. Victims’ ashes at Theresienstadt

A stack of box-paper urns containing the ash remains of victims killed at the Theresienstadt Ghetto and extermination camp established by the Nazis near the fortress town of Terezín in Czechoslovakia.

Three Lions / Hulton Archive via Getty Images

19. Auschwitz crematorium

The first crematorium built at Auschwitz, photographed after the war in 1955.

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Keystone / Hulton Archive via Getty Images

20. Theresienstadt Ghetto

An aerial view of the Theresienstadt Ghetto in Czechoslovakia, established by the Nazis as a stop on the way to extermination camps for some prisoners and as the site of the “final solution” for others.

Ira Nowinski / Corbis Historical via Getty Images

21. Front gate at Bełżec

The front gate at the Bełżec extermination camp in Poland.

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Imagno / Hulton Archive via Getty Images

22. Tracks to Treblinka

The railroad tracks leading to Treblinka extermination camp in Poland, where Jews, Poles, Roma, and Soviet POWs were killed.

Galerie Bilderwelt / Hulton Archive via Getty Images

23. From Lodz To Chelmno

The deportation of children from Łódź Ghetto in Poland to the Chełmno extermination camp in Poland, September 1942.

Public Domain / Wikimedia Commons via Picryl

24. Fences around Majdanek

Barbed wire fences enclosing a portion of the Majdanek concentration camp in Poland.

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Public Domain / Wikimedia Commons via Picryl

25. Roll call at Melk

Prisoners assembled for roll call at Melk, a subcamp of the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria, where prisoners from more than 15 countries, about 30% of them Jews, were held.

Public Domain / Wikimedia Commons via Picryl

26. Children liberated at Auschwitz

Children liberated at the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1945.

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Public Domain / United States Holocaust Memorial Museum via Picryl

27. Prisoners mixing concrete

Prisoners at the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany mix concrete at a nearby quarry during forced labor.

Public Domain / Wikimedia Commons via Picryl

28. The Janowska camp orchestra

Jewish musicians at the Janowska concentration camp, forced to form an orchestra for the amusement of the Nazis.

Public Domain / United States Holocaust Memorial Museum via Picryl

29. Buchenwald forced labor railroad

Prisoners from the Buchenwald concentration camp in forced labor building a 10-kilometer (6.2-mile) track between Weimar-Schöndorf and Buchenwald, which they completed in three months.

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Public Domain / Wikimedia Commons via Picryl

30. Roll call at Birkenau

Female prisoners at Auschwitz II-Birkenau stand for roll call in early 1944.

Public Domain / Wikimedia Commons via Picryl

31. Crematorium of Majdanek after liberation

The crematorium at the Majdanek concentration camp in Poland after its liberation in 1944.

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Public Domain / Wikimedia Commons via Picryl

32. Jews await selection in Auschwitz

Jewish prisoners from Subcarpathian Rus, in what is now Ukraine, await selection – for forced labor or extermination – at Auschwitz II-Birkenau.

Public Domain / Wikimedia Commons via Picryl

33. Jews at Birkenau walking towards the gas chambers

Hungarian Jews from the Tét ghetto walk towards the gas chambers and crematoria at Auschwitz II-Birkenau in 1944.

Public Domain / United States Holocaust Memorial Museum via Picryl

34. Buchenwald roll call 10105

Prisoners at the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany stand for roll call (refusal to participate was punishable by death).

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Public Domain / Wikimedia Commons via Picryl

35. Jewish women selected for labor

Jewish women from Subcarpathian Rus in what is now Ukraine, selected for forced labor at Auschwitz II-Birkenau, march towards their barracks after disinfection and head-shaving..

Public Domain / Wikimedia Commons via Picryl

36. Building a gas chamber and crematorium

Jews forced to build a as chamber and crematorium at Auschwitz II-Birkenau in the spring of 1943

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Public Domain / Wikimedia Commons via Picryl

37. Construction completed

A gas chamber and crematorium (where, according to calculations by German authorities, 1,440 corpses could be burned every 24 hours) at Auschwitz II-Birkenau after construction was completed in March of 1943.

Public Domain / United States Holocaust Memorial Museum via Picryl

38. Roll call after Kristallnacht

Jews imprisoned at Buchenwald after Kristallnacht – the so-called “Night of Broken Glass” in November 1938, during which Nazis and their sympathizers all over Germany and Austria destroyed Jewish businesses and synagogues and arrested some 30,000 Jews for incarceration.

Public Domain / Wikimedia Commons

39. Deportation of Jews

Jews from Zamość in southeastern Poland, known for its Hasidic Jewish community, being deported to Bełżec in April 1942.

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