"Men and boys reached out to touch me. They were in rags and the remnants of uniforms," reported journalist Edward R. Murrow, about his experience at Buchenwald concentration camp following its liberation
"Men and boys reached out to touch me. They were in rags and the remnants of uniforms," reported journalist Edward R. Murrow, about his experience at Buchenwald concentration camp following its liberation. "Death had already had marked many of them, but they were smiling with their eyes."
At the start of the war in Europe, Murrow was a rising broadcast journalist. Reporting in London during the Blitz, Germany's air assault on Great Britain, he risked his life to bring the sounds of war into American homes. These reports cemented Murrow's reputation as a trusted source.
In 1942, Murrow reported on mass murder by the Nazis. "What is happening is this: millions of human beings, most of them Jews, are being gathered up with ruthless efficiency and murdered." More than two years later on April 15, 1945, while reporting on the liberation of Buchenwald, Murrow witnessed the aftermath of Nazi atrocity firsthand.
Murrow's account was the first testimony by an American journalist from a newly-liberated concentration camp. It informed Americans of the full scale of Nazi crimes during the Holocaust.
Photo 1: Survivor of Buchenwald; USHMM, courtesy of Lee T. Stinchfield
Photo 2: Edward R. Murrow; National Archives
#Holocaust #History #WorldRadioDay less
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