Disease spread through the overcrowded buildings.
The historical record documents the deaths of thousands in this final period.
The prisoners who remained were not simply survivors in the ordinary sense.
Many were people who had survived almost impossible conditions while their bodies had been pushed far beyond their limits.
Then the American soldiers arrived
On April 11, American troops reached Nordhausen.
The 3rd Armored Division and the 104th Infantry Division encountered the Mittelbau-Dora camp complex and the Boelcke-Kaserne subcamp.
The soldiers found approximately 3,000 corpses at Boelcke-Kaserne and hundreds of survivors who were severely emaciated, starving and sick.
The US Army immediately began trying to provide medical assistance.
Some of the surviving prisoners were transported to hospitals.
The US Holocaust Memorial Museum records that approximately 250 ill and starving prisoners were initially transported to nearby medical facilities.
For the survivors, liberation was not the end of suffering.
It was the beginning of a desperate struggle to remain alive.
