by Michael McKenzie

About the author: Michael McKenzie is an adjunct professor of religion and philosophy at Northwest College.

Nobody ever called General George S. Patton squeamish. In his memoirs of World War II, as he fought his way across France and Germany, Patton describes destroyed German tanks, bombed-out buildings, and even hideously burned German corpses with a martial relish. To him, that was a normal part of war. But all this death and destruction which was a part of Patton’s world paled next to his first encounter with what were called “horror camps” or “hell camps.”

In fact, the horrors of the Ohrdruf camp even caused the hardened Patton to become physically sick and to label it “the most appalling sight imaginable.” The evils were so incredible, and disproved so thoroughly the notion that...