Acknowledging Camp Liberators and Death March Rescuers Without Official Recognition

While researching the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp, Dachau subcamps, and and death march rescues of prisoners from Dachau camp and subcamps, we have found the units that liberated other camps and subcamps that did not receive official liberator recognition and that death march rescues were excluded from official recognition.

Obtaining recognition for those units is beyond the mission and ability of our group.

However, we can acknowledge them by listing them on this website.

German communities have memorialized the Japanese American 522nd Field Artillery Battalion, 4th Infantry Division, for their rescue of Dachau main and subcamp prisoners from a death march. Information about that memorial is at the Death March Rescuers link below. That is an example of how units without official recognition can be recognized.

In 1945 no official definition of liberator existed. Many units and soldiers who encountered or liberated camps or subcamps or slave laborers or rescued prisoners from death marches legitimately self-identified as liberators. As veterans after the war they continued to self-identify as liberators. The official records of many of these units corroborate the oral histories, letters, diaries, and photos of these soldiers that they participated in camp or slave laborer liberation, death march rescues, or soldier-witnesses of the Holocaust.

In the mid-1980s, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) based on the U.S. Army Center of Military History (CMH) documentation definition recognized liberating divisions of camps and subcamps. Non-divisional and unattached units were excluded from recognition along with death march rescuers. The CMH set a very high level of documentation for recognition of liberating units. Among the reasons is to prevent errors or inaccuracies being cited by Holocaust deniers. 

Units that
may have be eligible for official recognition may never had their liberation submitted to the USHMM for consideration. Other Units and veterans were ineligible for or excluded for official recognition deserve.

All deserve some form of acknowledgement.

This website will list units that we have identified as we have related research and includes an example of acknowledgement.

Liberator Index

Death March Rescuers
<< Dachau Index

<< The 45th Infantry Division in World War II: An Unofficial Guide to Resources

All items not in the public domain c 2026
The 45th Infantry Division in World War II: An Unofficial Guide to Resources

Administrators: Leonard H. Cizewski & Judy Erwin Branham

Constructed: March 11, 2026
Posted: March 11, 2026
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Web page researched and composed by Leonard H. Cizewski

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While almost all items on this site are in the public domain, please contact the administrators for instructions on how to acknowledge the source.

Many volunteer researchers at their own expense obtained many of these public domain items from sources such as the National Archives.