Elbe, 1 May, and penetrated to Schwerin when the war in Europe ended. On 2 May 1945, as it advanced into northern Germany, the 8th Infantry Division encountered the Neuengamme concentration camp Wöbbelin subcamp, near the city of Ludwigslust. The SS had established Wöbbelin in early February 1945 to house concentration camp prisoners who had been evacuated from other Nazi camps to prevent their liberation by the Allies. Wöbbelin held some 5,000 inmates, many of whom suffered from starvation and disease. The sanitary conditions at the camp when the 8th Infantry Division and the 82nd Airborne Division arrived were deplorable. There was little food or water, and some prisoners had resorted to cannibalism. In the first week after liberation, more than 200 inmates died. In the aftermath, the United States Army ordered the townspeople in Ludwigslust to visit the camp and bury the dead. The 8th Infantry Division was recognized as a liberating unit by the U.S. Army's Center of Military History and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1988. CasualtiesTotal battle casualties: 13,986Killed in action: 2,532Wounded in action: 10,057Missing in action: 729Prisoner of war: 668 Assignments in the European Theater of Operations 30 November 1943: Attached to First Army. 24 December 1943: XV Corps. 1 July 1944: VIII Corps, attached to First Army. 1 August 1944: VIII Corps, Third Army, 12th Army Group. 5 September 1944: VIII Corps, Ninth Army, 12th Army Group. 22 October 1944: VIII Corps, First Army, 12th Army Group. 19 November 1944: V Corps. 18 December 1944: VII Corps. 20 December 1944: Attached, with the entire First Army, to the British 21st Army Group. 22 December 1944: XIX Corps, Ninth Army (attached to British 21st Army Group), 12th Army Group. 3 February 1945: VII Corps, First Army, 12th Army Group. 2 April 1945: XVIII (Abn) Corps. 26 April 1945: XVIII (Abn) Corps, Ninth Army, 12th Army Group, but attached for operations to the British Second Army in the British 21st Army Group. Medals of Honor Three soldiers of the 8th Division were awarded the Medal of Honor in World War II.Private First Class Ernest Prussman, 13th Infantry Regiment. Prussman took over his squad on 8 September 1944 during the advance on Les Coates [wrong transliteration of Loscoat, near Brest] in Brittany, and disarmed several Germans, including a machine gun crew. Shot by a German rifleman, his dying act was to unleash a hand grenade