The Specialists

It’s been nearly seventy years since the end of of World War II, but the Nazis are still among pop culture’s favorite bogey men. One reason is their theatricality, with skulls on their uniforms, goosestepping parades, Hitler’s apoplectic speeches, and the ever-present swastika. But behind all the showy trappings were real acts of evil.

As Allied forces liberated concentration camps in the later days of the war, they found many mass graves like the one in today’s page. It wasn’t until the camps were liberated that the true scope of the Nazis’ genocide was understood.