American troops, including African American soldiers from the Headquarters and Service Company of the 183rd Engineer Combat Battalion, 8th Corps, U.S. 3rd Army, view corpses stacked behind the crematorium during an inspection tour of the Buchenwald concentration camp. Among those pictured is Leon Bass (the soldier third from left). Buchenwald, Germany, April 17, 1945.
—United States Holocaust Memorial Museum #83761
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The fate of black people from 1933 to 1945 in Nazi Germany and in German-occupied territories ranged from isolation to persecution, sterilization, medical experimentation, incarceration, brutality, and murder. The number of black people living in Nazi-occupied Europe was relatively small and there was no systematic program for their elimination.
The racist nature of the Nazi regime was disguised briefly during the Olympic Games in Berlin in August 1936, when 18 African American athletes competed for the U.S. team. Military service also confronted black soldiers with the horrors of the Holocaust, both as prisoners of war and as liberators.
African Americans were among the liberators of the Buchenwald concentration camp. William Scott, seen here during training, was a military photographer and helped document Nazi crimes in the camp. Alabama, United States, March 1943.
—United States Holocaust Memorial Museum #86235
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