`` sounding like Jews , '' or dubbed as undesirables , according to survivors . More than 100 soldiers perished at the camp or on a forced death march . It was on this day six decades ago , April 23 , 1945 , when most of the slave labor camp soldiers were liberated by advancing U.S. troops . The emaciated soldiers , many weighing just 80 pounds , had been forced by Nazi commanders to march more than 150 miles before their rescue . Watch survivor break down in tears over liberation '' The new photograph was likely taken in May or June 1945 when U.S. war crimes investigators combed Berga . It was donated earlier this month to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum by Jim Martin and his family , whose father , Elmore `` Bud '' Martin , is believed to have snapped the picture as part of the war crimes investigation team . The photo and dozens of others sat for years in Jim Martin 's closet . Some of the photos , including graphic images of American corpses , were placed on record at the National Archives years ago . See shocking photos of the
ATLANTA , Georgia -LRB- CNN -RRB- -- The photograph is a jarring image that shows Nazi Party members , shovels in hand , digging up graves of American soldiers held as slaves by Nazi Germany during World War II . Members of the Nazi Party are forced to dig up mass graves of U.S. soldiers while American GIs look on . While the men dig up the site , U.S. soldiers investigating war crimes stand over them . Two crosses with helmets placed atop them -- the sign of a fallen soldier -- are visible . Two Germans are knee deep in mud . Another , with a handlebar mustache , has the look of a defeated man . The bodies of 22 American soldiers were found in at least seven graves , according to the photographer . On the back of the photo is written , `` Nazi Party members digging up American bodies at Berga . '' Berga an der Elster was a slave labor camp where 350 U.S. soldiers were beaten , starved , and forced to work in tunnels for the German government . The soldiers were singled out for `` looking like Jews '' or