Never before seen color images of Dachau, the first concentration camp that was established by the Nazis in Germany in 1933, surfaced this week, nearly 70 years after the end of World War II and some two weeks before Israel marks Holocaust Remembrance Day.
The Vintage Everyday website posted the images on Tuesday. According to the website, the photographs were taken by allied forces immediately after the camp was liberated, on April 29, 1945. The website did not specify the source of the photos.
Britain's Daily Mail, which carried the photos, quoted an expert who confirmed that the photographs were authentic. "The pictures appear to be quite similar to others taken by the U.S. forces that liberated the camp," he said.
Opened on March 22, 1933, Dachau was meant to house political prisoners and dissidents. Within one year, it housed 4,800 prisoners.
Between 1939 and 1942, the Nazis were rounding up more and more prisoners in the camps, including those they deemed "racially inferior," such as Roma (also known as Gypsies), Jews, homosexuals, Jehovahs Witnesses and various criminals.
By the time the camp was liberated, it housed 200,000 people. It is believed that 41,500 people were killed in Dachau, nearly 40,000 of them Jewish.
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