Inside, they found bodies piled on top of one another, their limbs intertwined - bones poking through skin.

Joe Collins (from top), Roy Stampley and Winkler Fuchs helped liberate German concentration camps. ANDREW DAVIS TUCKER/STAFF

Some survivors, many of them Jews, were too weak to greet the soldiers and instead had to celebrate the liberation with cries of joy in a mix of Polish, Russian and German.

The German concentration camps that Winkler Fuchs, Joe Collins and Roy Stampley helped liberate - Dachau and Buchenwald - were separated by more than 200 miles, but the horrors the veterans encountered were nearly identical.

The men's memories of Dachau and Buchenwald are as vivid today as they were more than 55 years ago.

Among the first

Hephzibah native Joe Collins, 77, was with the 45th Infantry Division - one of two divisions that liberated the concentration camp at Dachau, near Munich, on April 29, 1945.

Dachau, which opened in 1933, was Adolf Hitler's first camp, and it became the model for others.

The American soldiers knew they were going to take over a prison camp, but they had no idea what had gone on at Dachau.

Mr. Collins' division entered the camp's south gate while another division stormed the front. The Americans met resistance from German SS soldiers.

``They didn't want to give up,'' said Mr. Collins - then an Army staff sergeant. Most of the German soldiers were killed during the capture of the camp or were executed later.

After the Americans had control of Dachau, Mr. Collins was in charge of the guard detail. That wasn't a problem, he said.

The Germans were long gone. They wouldn't be back.

American soldiers were left to confront the gruesome aftermath. Bodies to be cremated filled train cars stopped on the camp's railroad tracks.

``Some of the GIs were so sick (at the sight), they just couldn't do anything,'' Mr. Collins said.

Many of the bodies had been there for quite a while, he said.

``They were all dried up, but the scent was still there,'' he said. ``It was like touching a piece of wood.''

Before he went to Dachau, Mr. Collins had seen his share of the nightmare of war in four battles, including the Battle of the Bulge.

One of his close friends was shot in the head by a sniper and died just a few feet away from the 20-year-old.

Dachau was worse.

``I had seen dead people before,'' he said. ``But Dachau was different.''

Nursing the wounded

An American soldier reaches to inmates of the concentration camp in Dachau, Germany, during its liberation in April 1945. More than 200,000 people were recorded as being imprisoned at Dachau, and about 32,000 prisoners were liberated. The camp is now an educational center where visitors can learn about the Holocaust. SPECIAL

Winkler Fuchs, 76, was an Army nurse with the 133rd Evacuation Hospital. He went to Dachau the day after it was liberated.

The 20-year-old Texan had no idea what to expect. The men weren't told much about what they would encounter, only that they would be taking care of prisoners.

He remembers the women - aged by their time at the concentration camp.

``Those women had missing and broken teeth, diseases of the mouth, and they looked like old women even though they were young,'' said Mr. Fuchs, who now lives in Augusta. ``The sad part was they kept wanting to hug and kiss us boys.''

Mr. Fuchs' job was to delouse those in the camp and treat scabies, which was rampant among the survivors, who had not bathed in months.

The men and women were cared for separately, and each group was stripped and lined up for the medical team.

The survivors' hair was sheared close to the scalp. They were bathed and sprayed with DDT - an insecticide. Then the nurses applied ointment to their sores, and they were given clean clothes.

This was Mr. Fuchs' first major task as a nurse during the war. The liberation occurred about five months after he arrived in Europe.

``The people who weren't dead were skin and bones,'' Mr. Fuchs said ``For a kid, it was a terrible experience.

``I just couldn't believe a human being could do another human being that way.''

One image continues to haunt Mr. Fuchs.

Ten to 15 men lay in wooden bunks stacked seven or eight beds high, too weak to get up. A nearby hole in the ground served as the toilet - the stench permeated the room.

``Dachau was a final resting place for most people,'' Mr. Fuchs said.

More than 200,000 people were recorded as imprisoned at Dachau. About 30,000 people died, said Peter Black, the senior historian at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

But that's probably not an accurate count, he said, because many bodies were taken to Dachau to be disposed of and never were recorded.

``There were about 32,000 prisoners liberated on April 29, 1945,'' Mr. Black said. ``In addition to the living, 2,300 bodies were counted by American soldiers when they got there.''

Mr. Black said the prisoners were cared for at the camp until June 1945. They were sent back to their countries or to camps for those who had nowhere to go.

Dachau is now an educational center where visitors can learn about the Holocaust.

``I think it's appropriate to have it to show people what can happen when crazy rulers get their hand,'' Mr. Fuchs said.

Buchenwald scenes

Prisoners of the Dachau camp peer from an enclosure before their release April 29, 1945. SPECIAL

Roy Stampley helped liberate Buchenwald - one of Germany's largest concentration camps, about 200 miles north of Dachau and near Weimar - on April 11, 1945.

Mr. Stampley, now 81 and living in Augusta, rode ahead of the soldiers in the 6th Armored Division in a light tank and was among the first at the camp.

Seared in his memory are the metal hooks he saw hanging in a crematorium building. They were the kind used to hang beef after slaughter, but the hooks at Buchenwald weren't used for cows.

Some of the concentration camp's prisoners were hung - the hooks piercing their chins and exiting through the mouth.

``There were marks on the cement wall a quarter-inch thick where they had clawed, trying to get out,'' he said.

The 25-year-old Mississippi native spent only a couple of hours at Buchenwald before being ordered to move on, but the images he saw have lasted a lifetime.

About 21,100 prisoners were in Buchenwald's main camp when it was liberated.

``Most of them - they couldn't even walk,'' Mr. Stampley said. ``They had been starved to death.

``They threw their hands up and hollered. They were so glad we were there.''

The soldiers were ordered not to give the survivors anything to eat, even though they were begging for food, because it might make them sick or kill them.

``I felt so sorry we couldn't give them anything,'' he said.

All the soldiers could do was tell the survivors that the American Red Cross would be at the camp later to take care of everyone.

After seeing Buchenwald, Mr. Stampley said, he was more angry than anything because of what had happened to the people there.

He, too, had seen his share of battles, and for him, the fighting was worse at the time. But decades later, it's the opposite.

``Something like battle you can forget,'' he said. ``But you don't forget the concentration camp.''

Anniversary of Anne Frank's arrest passes

Saturday was the 57th anniversary of the arrest of Anne Frank. The German-Jewish teen-ager is perhaps the most well-known concentration camp victim because of the diary she kept while hiding with her family in two rooms of an Amsterdam canal house for more than two years.

Anne, who was 15 when she was captured by the Germans, was sent to camps at Westerbork, Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, where she died of typhus in March 1945.

Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl was published in 1947 after Otto Frank was given his daughter's writings by Miep Gies, who helped the family during their time in hiding.

The book has been translated into more than 67 languages.

To read more about Anne Frank, go to www.annefrank.com.

Reach Teresa Wood at (706) 823-3765.