Established in March 1933, the concentration camp at Dachau was smaller than other camps, such as Auschwitz, and Jews were usually only a minority of its prison population which included foreign dignitaries, spies, soldiers, partisans, and traitors. Yet, because it was the first such camp set up by the Nazis, Dachau has a certain extra importance in the annals of Nazi atrocity, an importance that led Michael Seizer to select it as the subject for this account of the last hours before the camp was liberated. In addition, Seizer hopes ""to counteract the notion that the camps, as such, were a distinctively Jewish tragedy"" and to recall ""the role of the United States armed forces as the world's principle defense against tyranny and inhumanity.""