I apologize ahead of time if this is not the correct subreddit for this.
My grandfather, who served in WWII, passed away in '08 and while sorting through his estate I came across a small metal box that contained these photos inside, among quite a few more (Warning, they are disturbing). I presume that he, or someone he know, took them during their service. I'm not sure if they are reprints, or genuine, as the paper they are printed on in someway feels flimsy... But I personally have never seen these photos anywhere else, leading me to believe they are original. But that's why I'm here! If anyone could tell me more about these photos (if they have seen them anywhere else before, where they were taken, etc etc) I would be incredibly appreciative.
To help narrow down the search, what I know about my grandfather's service is this:
1). He served in the US Army, Transportation Corps, from Nov. 1944 to Oct 1945.
2). I remember saying he was part of Patton's 3rd Army.
3). If I recall, he said he was snuck into France. He also had a few stories about his run ins with the French.
4). He has an Occupation of Germany medal, which leads me to conclude he was in Germany for quite some time as well.
If anyone could tell me more about US Army history of this particular time frame (Nov. 1944 to Oct 1945), or anything that would help conclude what or who these photos are of, I would be very appreciative as well. Thank you everyone!
All four of those pictures were taken by Charles Groebner, who was also in the Third Army, during the liberation of Dachau. A collection of Groebner's Dachau photographs can be seen here.
All four pictures are in that gallery.
Units of Patton's Third Army liberated more large camps than just Ohrdruf and Mittelbau-Dora (also known as Nordhausen-Dora). Amongst the larger camps, Mauthausen in Austria was liberated by the 11th Armored Division, and Flossenbuerg in Germany was liberated by the 90th Infantry Division. The 71st Infantry Division liberated 15,000 prisoners at Gunskirchen concentration camp, also in Austria. All three divisions were part of the Third Army.
But more than that, there were thousands of camps of various sizes within the Reich--some of them with only a few hundred prisoners. For instance, the German company HASAG used a small labor camp near the town of Floessbuerg to provide labor for a Panzerfaust factory. The camp was liberated by the 2nd Infantry Division, but they only found three live prisoners--the guards had taken the other 1,100 prisoners on a death march. So it's entirely possible that these photos were taken at a tiny camp that few people have ever heard of.
The best way to find out where these photos may have come from is to do some research into your grandfather's service history. Hundreds of thousands of troops were in the Third Army, and units sometimes were assigned to the Third Army from other armies, then were taken away from the Third Army and sent elsewhere. For instance, the above-mentioned 2nd Infantry Division was not a part of the Third Army when they liberated the Floessbuerg camp, but they had been at times earlier in the war. So you need to whittle it down as much as possible (unfortunately this is difficult with the loss of so many US Army personnel records in the 1973 fire at the National Archives building in St. Louis).
Further reading: 71st Infantry Division, The Seventy-First Came to Gunskirchen Lager.
Abzug, Robert H. Inside the Vicious Heart: Americans and the Liberation of Nazi Concentration Camps.
Bridgman, Jon. The End of the Holocaust: The Liberation of the Camps.
Hirsh, Michael. The Liberators: America's Witnesses to the Holocaust.
Here is a link to online documents relating to the liberation of concentration camps at the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library.
I have no info for you, but thanks for posting these!