re: Interesting reddit thread on concentration camps from the Red Army perspective

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Knowing the Red Army was closing in, the SS gave the boilermen (?) [people operating the ovens] the order, to throw the prisoners, who were already emaciated to the point of looking like skeleton, into the crematorium alive. They wanted to get rid of the sick and weakened to cover up their tracks as fast as possible.
The boilermen looked surprised to see us officers and soldiers. They were strong people, mostly Kapos [prisoners forced to work in the camps]. They greeted us with shy smiles on their faces, a mix of happiness and fear. Like on command, they threw away their poker. With us, they talked freely. Angry words about Hitler were spoken. I still remember an old boilermen stammer “Thank you”. “Thank you, friend. May I call you [the Russians] friends?”.
One of them, a Ukrainian, I asked: “Why did you do that?” and pointed towards the ovens. Without blinking he replied: “They didn’t ask if I wanted to. No, I didn’t want to. But better be the guy working the oven, then be the one burning. That’s why I did it.” I was speechless, could just shake my head. “Why aren’t the other ovens burning? There’s no smoke coming up the chimney”, I asked the guy. “Deconstructed”, he said.
Caught in our own thoughts, everyone just stood around. Nobody cared about the burning ovens. “Stop this. Out! All of you!”, the commanding officer Sergejew shouted. Outside, he was shaking and said with a stuttering voice: “How can this be in the midst of the 20th century! I can’t comprehend this. If there’d be a god, maybe he could explain how this all came to be.”
We visited the barracks and couldn’t believe our own eyes. Naked and groaning people, hardly looking like humans, were laying on straw bags. I touched one of the people laying there. He didn’t move. He wasn’t alive anymore.

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