In the final days of World War II, American magazines covered victories in war alongside some of the first widely circulated photographs from concentration camps. American soldiers who liberated concentration camps, or toured the newly freed camps, wrote letters to their families to tell them about what they had seen. On May 8, 1945, millions took to the streets—from Times Square in New York to Paris, France—to celebrate the end of World War II in Europe. The Allied victory in Europe brought an