Buchenwald Stories: Testimony, Military History, and the American Encounter with the Holocaust

This article examines a large body of written and oral testimonies by American servicemen who witnessed the liberation of the Buchenwald concentration camp in April 1945. During the decades since, the experience of liberation has become a central component of American public memory of World War II in Europe. As this article demonstrates, liberator testimony has shifted in important ways during the subsequent decades, both reflecting and shaping changes in American engagement with both the war and the Holocaust.