The Liberation of the Camps

More than seventy years have passed since the end of the Holocaust but the liberation of Nazi concentration camps continues to inform public thinking about the genocide. Much of the imagery we associate with the Holocaust stems from the iconic newsreel footage shot by Allied soldiers and journalists upon arrival at the camps, while the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz (27 January) stands at the heart of contemporary memorial culture as an international day of remembrance. Elsewhere, numerous films, television programmes and museum exhibitions have concluded their Holocaust narratives with the moment of liberation—a moment that, as Dan Stone points out in his latest book, has all too frequently been depicted as a ‘joyous affair’. Yet liberation did not constitute the end of survivors’ stories. Immediate medical needs, long-term psychological scars and lengthy emigration campaigns ensured that the experience of ‘liberation’ was actually an arduous journey. Some of the camps even had a post-war life, housing thousands of Displaced Persons (DPs). Liberation, argues Stone, was a process, and it is this concept that drives this engaging new study

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