Crowded barracks at Buchenwald Concentration Camp. April 16, 1945. Elie Wiesel, second row from the bottom, seventh from the left, would later become an author and Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

Source: National Archives (111-SC-203647)

Burnett Miller was born on September 2, 1923 in Sacramento. His father ran a successful lumber business. Miller was a sophomore in ROTC at Santa Clara College when the war began. In May of 1943, he was called to active duty and after basic training entered the Army Specialized Training . . .

Samples of letters home written by Burnett Miller

An inmate at Gusen concentration camp, a sub-camp of Mauthausen.

Source: National Archives (208-AA-127H-23)

In a box car at Dachau concentration camp, American Medical Corpsmen examine the dead bodies of prisoners. At other camps, medic Ray Leopold witnesses horrors he had trouble believing.

Source: National Archives (208-AA-129J-57)

Dwain Luce was born April 25 1916, and grew up in Mobile. His father was in the lumber business. Luce graduated from high school in l934 and from Auburn in l938, with a reserve commission. After graduation he went to work at his family's cannery business in Mississippi. On December . . .

This building in Hadamar, Germany was used by the Germans as a prison.

Source: National Archives (111-SC-204778)

Emaciated prisoners wedged into a bunk house at Mauthausen. Liberated by 11th Armored Division -- Burnett Miller's unit. May 6, 1945.

Source: National Archives (111-SC-206397)

Starving prisoners at Mauthausen concentration camp. Burnett Miller's unit helped liberate this camp.

Source: National Archives (208-AA-127K-2)

Crippled Mauthausen prisoners stand in front of armored cars of the 11th Armored Division -- Burnett Miller's unit. May 6, 1945.

Source: National Archives (111-SC-206398)

Prisoners of Mauthausen, liberated by 11th Armored Division -- Burnett Miller's unit -- pull down Nazi Eagle mounted over camp gate. May 6, 1945.

Source: National Archives (111-SC-206399)

In the women's camp at Mauthausen, survivors queue up for soup. May 12, 1945. Burnett Miller's unit helped liberate this camp.

Source: National Archives (208-AA-206B1)

Inmates at the Mauthausen concentration camp are liberated by the 11th Armored Division. May 6, 1945 . Sacramento's Burnett Miller served with the 11th.

Source: National Archives (111-SC-206395)

Medic Ray Leopold. The Waterbury, Connecticut native tended to the wounded during the Battle of the Bulge and later witnessed the horror of the concentration camps.

Source: Ray Leopold

Ray Leopold was born in Waterbury, Connecticut on December 13, 1914, the son of a Jewish immigrant from Latvia. He graduated from Wilby High School in 1933 and became a mortgage broker. He was drafted in September 1943, and after basic training was assigned to the 16th Armored Division and . . .

There's no place like home

It's never pleasant to do the work of a medic, but it's necessary.

Nazi effort to exterminate the Jews of Europe during World War II. Historians have developed several interpretations of the Holocaust. While some see it as the last, most entry into politics at the end of World War I, Hitler's obsessive, pathological anti-Semitism, its identification with Bolshevism, and a crude social . . .

Inmates of the Wobbelin Concentration Camp soon after it was liberated by the 8th Infantry Division and the 82nd Airborne Division. May 4, 1945.

Source: National Archives (WC-1106)

Inmates of the Wobbelin Concentration Camp soon after it was liberated by the 8th Infantry Division and the 82nd Airborne Division. May 4, 1945. May 4, 1945.

Source: National Archives (WC-1108)