The bodies of a small baby and an infant were buried on April 14, 1945, in a mass grave that the U.S. military ordered German civilians to dig near the Dora Mittelbau concentration camp in the town of Nordhausen, Germany.

　　The bodies of dead children were buried in a mass grave that the U.S. Army ordered German civilians to dig near the Dora Mittelbau concentration camp in the town of Nordhausen, Germany. An American soldier looks down from above on the bodies of children being buried in a mass grave on April 14, 1945. The bodies of children found near the Dora Mittelbau concentration camp in the town of Nordhausen lie in a mass burial grave. The corpses of small babies and infants were laid to rest in a mass grave for mass burial at the concentration camp of terror in the German town of Nordhausen. When American troops arrived in the area of the concentration camp in the town of Nordhausen, the bodies of hundreds of forced labor prisoners littered the grounds. Decomposing corpses lay beside those who had died of disease in the concentration camp. Disease spread unchecked among the abused prisoners of various nationalities. American officers immediately ordered German civilians in the area to provide decent burials for the victim prisoners.

 The Dora Mittelbau concentration camp in the town of Nordhausen was liberated on April 12, 1945, by the 104th Infantry Division of the US Army. When the first U.S. NCOs arrived at the concentration camp, they were met with a horrific sight. More than 3,000 corpses were strewn haphazardly across the concentration camp grounds. In some containment rooms there were no survivors, while in others, a few survivors lay among dozens of corpses. The dire situation prompted the medical unit of the U.S. Army's 104th Infantry Division to request immediate medical assistance and resupply. Approximately 400 more German civilians who lived in the immediate vicinity of the concentration camp were forced to dispose of their bodies by U.S. NCOs. Despite treatment by the 104th Division's medical unit, numerous inmates died in the hours and days following the camp's liberation.

　 Beginning in August 1943, the Germans moved V-2 missile production from the island of Usedon to an underground facility on Kornstein Hill, about a mile from the town of Nordhausen. The first V-2 rocket attacked London on September 8, 1944, and the last launch was on March 27, 1945. In nearly seven months of attacks, more than 3,000 warheads hit Allied cities; in late October 1944, the Dora Mittelbau concentration camp was in full V-2 production; on April 3, 1945, an Allied bombing campaign targeted the town of Nordhausen. The bombs hit the Boelcke-Kaserne subcamp, killing about 1,500 prisoners; on April 4, Nazi Germany began the transfer of prisoners from Dora Mittelbau to Bergen-Belsen and Ravensbruck, where they were forced on an excruciating death march.

　From August 1943 to March 1945, at least 60,000 prisoners were held in the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp. At least about 12,000 were murdered in the camp. More than 20,000 were also killed in the death marches following the evacuation of Mittelbau Dora.