Buchenwald

Buchenwald was a Nazi concentration camp established on Ettersberg Hill near Weimar, Thuringia, Germany, in July 1937. The name "Buchenwald" is German for "beech forest", as the camp was located in Buchenwald forest. The prisoners were used as slave labour in local armament factories.

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The first commandant was Karl Otto Koch, who ran the camp from 1937 to 1941. His second wife, Ilse Koch, became notorious as "The Witch of Buchenwald" ("Die Hexe von Buchenwald", and informally "The Bitch of Buchenwald"), for her streak of cruelty. Karl Otto Koch was tried and executed by the Nazi authorities for forgery and embezzlement in April 1945, whilst Ilse was sentenced to life imprisonment by the post-war German authorities, committing suicide in her cell in 1967.

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Although not technically an extermination camp, mass killings of prisoners of war took place at Buchenwald, and many inmates died during medical experiments, or fell victim to arbitrary acts perpetrated by the SS guards.

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The camp was also the site of large-scale testing of vaccines for epidemic typhus in 1942 and 1943, all in all testing 729 inmates, around 280 of whom died. Because of their long association in cramped quarters in Block 46, the bacterium killed more and infection lasted longer than typhus in healthy adults.

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The camp was evacuated by the Nazis as Allied troops approached the area, and the U.S. 3rd Army assumed control of the camp on 11 April, 1945.

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After the departure of Allied troops, the Soviet occupation forces used the infrastructure of the camp from 1945 to 1950, re-naming it "Special Camp 2". It was used to house German prisoners, and Soviet records indicate that over 7,000 died.

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Nazi: The term Nazi typically refers to someone who affiliates oneself with or is perceived to be affiliated with the ideology of the former National Socialist German Workers Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, commonly called NSDAP or the Nazi Party). The term can be used as a noun or...

Concentration camp: A concentration camp is a large detention center created for political opponents, aliens, specific ethnic or religious groups, civilians of a critical war-zone, or other groups of people, often during a war. The term refers to situations where the internees are persons selected for their conformance...

Weimar: Weimar is a city in Germany. It is located at 50? 58 min 6 s north / 11? 18 min 6 s east, in the Bundesland of Thuringia (German: Th?ringen), close to the Th?ringer Wald to the south, shortly to the northeast of Erfurt, and approximately fifty miles (75 kilometers) southwest of Halle and Leipzig. It...

Buchenwald related Images and Photos (experimental)

Truck Load of Bodies of Prisoners of Nazis in Buchenwald Concentration Camp

Jewish Children Holding Flag with Star of David After Release from Buchenwald Concentration Camp