Paul Averitt

Self-portrait, 1945

Paul Richard Averitt (born August 7, 1923 , Nashville , Tennessee ; † August 7, 2001 , Davidson County, Tennessee ) was an American soldier in the US Army who served in the 92nd Signal Corps Battalion. He was one of the photographers who documented the death train from Buchenwald and the Dachau concentration camp immediately after its liberation.

Life

Averitt was the younger son of Henry Clark Averitt (1892-1947) and Bessie Mai Baker Averitt (1890-1987). His brother was called James Edwin Averitt (1920–1981). He attended East High School in his hometown.

On January 30, 1943, Averitt was drafted into the A-Company of the Army 92nd Signal Battalion. The unit was stationed in the United Kingdom and Ireland for more than a year, until a week after landing in Normandy it was transferred to France and placed under the Third United States Army . On the advance through northern France and the Rhineland, Averitt's company was often the first to advance into areas that had just been given up by the Wehrmacht . Paul Averitt documented the campaign in hundreds of photographs.

He arrived at the Dachau concentration camp on April 29, 1945 , just a few hours after its liberation. Even before entering the concentration camp, he came across the death train from Buchenwald , in which several thousand corpses and dying lay. Averitt documented the atrocities photographically. He also photographed some murdered SS men who were shot by US troops out of indignation over the mountains of corpses on the train and in the camp during the Dachau massacre .

Averitt returned to the United States and was honorably discharged from the military on December 2, 1945. He then worked for the family business John Bouchard & Sons for forty years . He married Gradye Ruth. The couple had four daughters and eight grandchildren.

Photographs

Corpses of prisoners in the Dachau concentration camp

The death train from Buchenwald

Web links

Commons : Paul Averitt - collection of images, videos and audio files

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum : Collections Search for Paul Averitt , accessed October 8, 2016
The Dachau Death Train , description of Buchenwald's death train on scrapbook pages

References and comments

↑ ^a ^b Paul Richard Averitt . Ancestry.com, accessed October 8, 2016.
↑ ^a ^b 2001 Paul Richard Averitt obituary . Obituary in The Tennessean (Nashville), August 9, 2001, p. 21, accessed November 3, 2016.
^ Paul Averitt: The corpse of a prisoner lies next to the train tracks in Dachau . United States Holocaust Memorial Museum , February 5, 2003, image from April 29, 1945, accessed November 3, 2016.

personal data
SURNAME	Averitt, Paul
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Averitt, Paul Richard (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	American soldier in the US Army
DATE OF BIRTH	August 7, 1923
PLACE OF BIRTH	Nashville , Tennessee
DATE OF DEATH	August 7, 2001

[Ancestry-1] Paul Richard Averitt . Ancestry.com, accessed October 8, 2016.

[TheTennessean-2] 2001 Paul Richard Averitt obituary . Obituary in The Tennessean (Nashville), August 9, 2001, p. 21, accessed November 3, 2016.

[3] Paul Averitt: The corpse of a prisoner lies next to the train tracks in Dachau . United States Holocaust Memorial Museum , February 5, 2003, image from April 29, 1945, accessed November 3, 2016.