On this day in 1945, the 82nd Airborne Division liberates a concentration camp just outside Ludwigslust, Germany.
On this day in 1945, the 82nd Airborne Division liberates a concentration camp just outside Ludwigslust, Germany. The Wöbbelin camp hadn’t been in operation for too long: It was established in February 1945 as the Nazis sought to move prisoners away from the Allied advance. Even at this late stage of the war, the Nazis did not want those prisoners rescued. At this point in the war, of course, the writing was on the wall. Adolf Hitler had committed suicide mere days earlier, and an Allied victory was just around the corner. Allied forces were discovering and liberating thousands upon thousands of Hitler’s prisoners. Unfortunately, they were too late to help many of the Wöbbelin inmates. “I was not prepared mentally to deal with the horror of the camp,” one soldier later wrote. James Megellas was a platoon leader at the time. He learned of the camp when a sergeant radioed in, reporting that his squad had just found a chain-link fence. “Some skinny-looking guys in bad shape ar...