We have a close friend who was a 15 year old girl who lived in Dresden during WWII. She had no input into what happened to the people in concentration camps. Neither did the American servicemen who were prisoners being held in Dresden and were made to dig bodies out of the rubble.
After the war our friend married an American serviceman. What she told us was horrific.
My wife's father was a tanker in WWII in the 3rd Armored Division. He was horrified by what he saw first hand at the Dora-Mittelbau concentration camp in Nordhausen, Germany. He said that he felt paralyzed by the smell and what he saw, and the people walking around who looked like they were already dead.
paralyzed by the smell
I went to Auschwitz and Birkenau last year. There’s still a weird smell and such an overwhelming strange feeling at both. It seems like evil is still lurking inside the camps.
He showed us a picture of his beautiful family home in beautiful downtown Dresden. However, as the Soviets closed in in 1945, they had to skedaddle and leave their home behind. Its next occupant was probably a Communist apparatchik.