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Please take the time to look at the following pages. These men all fought in World War II, and were truly heroes. We should never forget them and why they were fighting.
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Structure
Concentration camp, one of the largest on German soil, with 130 satellite camps and extension units. Buchenwald was situated on the northern slope of Ettersberg, a mountain 5 miles (8 km) north of Weimar, in Thuringen (now part of the German Democratic Republic). The camp was established on July 16, 1937, when the first group of prisoners, consisting of 149 persons, mostly political detainees and criminals, was brought to the site. The name "Buchenwald" was given to it by Heinrich Himmler on July 28, 1937.
Buchenwald was divided into three parts: the "large camp, " which housed prisoners with some seniority; the "small camp, " where prisoners were kept in quarantine; and the "tent camp, " set up for Polish prisoners sent there after the German invasion of Poland in 1939. Besides these three parts were the administration compound, the SS barracks, and the camp factories. The commandants were SS - Standartenfuhrer Karl Koch (1937 - 1941) and SS - Oberfuhrer Hermann Pister (1942 - 1945).
Initial Groups of Prisoners
Large groups of prisoners began to arrive in the camp shortly after its foundation and by the end of 1937 their number reached 2,561, most of them "politicals." In the spring of 1938 the number of prisoners rose rapidly as a result of the operation against "asocial elements, " the victims of which were taken to Buchenwald; by July 1938 there were 7,723 prisoners in the camp. Another 2,200 from Austria were added on September 23, 1938, all of them Jews. A further 10,000 Jews were imprisoned after kristallnacht (November 9 - 10, 1938), and at the end of November the camp prison population exceeded 18,000. By the end of the year, most of the Jewish prisoners were released, and the camp population had dropped to 11,000.
Additional Influx of Prisoners
The outbreak of war was accompanied by a wave of arrests throughout the Reich, which brought thousands of political prisoners to Buchenwald. This was followed by the influx of thousands of Poles, who were housed in the tent camp. As of 1943, following the completion of armament factories in the vicinity of the camp, the number of prisoners grew steadily: to 63,048 by the end of 1944 and to 86,232 in February 1945. In the eight years of its existence, from July 1937 to March 1945, a total of 238,980 prisoners from thirty countries passed through Buchenwald and its satellite camps; of these, 43,045 were killed or perished in some other fashion there (the figure includes Soviet prisoners of war).
Arrival of Jewish Prisoners The first transports of German Jews arrived in the spring of 1938, followed by Austrian Jews and the Kristallnacht prisoners. The Jews were subject to extraordinarily cruel treatment, working fourteen to fifteen hours a day (generally in the infamous Buchenwald quarry) and enduring abominable living conditions. The Nazis' object at this point was to exert pressure on the Jews and their families to emigrate from Germany within the shortest possible time. Thus, in the winter of 1938 - 1939, 9,370 Jews were released after their families, as well as Jewish and international organizations, had made arrangements for their emigration. Of the Kristallnacht detainees, in the short while that these prisoners were held at Buchenwald, 600 were killed, committed suicide, or died from other causes. The number of Jewish prisoners rose again after the outbreak of the war, when Jews from Germany and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia were brought to the camp; in September 1939, the Jewish prisoners numbered some 2,700.
Transfer of Jews to Auschwitz
In accordance with an order issued on October 17, 1942, which provided for all Jewish prisoners held in the Reich to be transferred to Auschwitz, the Jews in Buchenwald, except for 204 essential workers, were sent to that concentration and extermination camp. In 1944, transports of Hungarian Jews began coming to Buchenwald from Auschwitz; after a short stay in the main camp most of them were distributed among the satellite camps, where they were put to work in the armament factories. Beginning on January 18, 1945, when Auschwitz and other camps in the east were being evacuated, thousands of Jewish prisoners arrived in Buchenwald. The Auschwitz evacuees included several hundred children and youths, and a special barrack, which came to be known as "Children's Block 66, " was put up for them in the tent camp. This block housed more than six hundred children and youths, most of whom survived. The Jewish prisoners were deprived of the privileges and exemptions granted to the other inmates, and Jewish prisoners were used for medical experiments.
Resistance
Resistance cells were formed in Buchenwald from the first years of its existence. In 1938 such a cell was established by members of the German Communist party in the camp, who included some of that party's most prominent figures. At first, the aim of the resistance cells was to plant their members in the central posts available to inmates, to support one another, and to have a say in developments in the camp. Up to the end of 1938 the internal administration of Buchenwald was, for the most part, in the hands of the criminal prisoners. When it was discovered that the criminals and some of the SS personnel were involved in corruption and stealing (from the Kristallnacht prisoners), the camp administration removed the criminal prisoners from most of their posts, and their influence gradually passed into the hands of the political prisoners. Some resistance cells, mainly those belonging to the Left, managed to plant some of their members in key positions held by prisoners in the internal camp administration, thereby facilitating their clandestine activities. Later, following the outbreak of the war and the influx into Buchenwald of political prisoners from the occupied countries, more resistance groups were formed, on the basis of nationality. In 1943 a general underground movement that included Jews came into being, called the International Underground Committee. The resistance movement in Buchenwald scored some impressive successes, primarily the acts of sabotage it carried out in the armaments works that employed Buchenwald prisoners. Underground members also smuggled arms and ammunition into the camp.
Evacuation of Prisoners
On April 6, 1945, the Germans began evacuating the Jewish prisoners. The following day, thousands of prisoners of various nationalities were evacuated from the main camps and the satellite camps. Of the 28,250 prisoners evacuated from the main camp, 7,000 to 8,000 either were killed or died by some other means in the course of the evacuation. The total number of prisoners from the satellite camps and the main camp who fell victim during the evacuation of Buchenwald is estimated at 25,500. In the final days of the camp's existence, resistance members who held key posts in the internal administration sabotaged SS orders for evacuation by slowing down its pace, and as a result the Nazis failed to complete the evacuation.
Liberation and Aftermath
By April 11, most of the SS men had fled from the camp. The underground did not wait for the approaching American forces to take control but did so themselves, together with armed teams of prisoners, in the process trapping several dozen SS men left in the camp. On that day, April 11, some twenty - one thousand prisoners were liberated in Buchenwald, with four thousand Jews among them, including about one thousand children and youths.
In 1947, thirty - one members of the Buchenwald camp staff were tried for their crimes by an American court. Two of the accused were sentenced to death, and four to life imprisonment.
Courtesy of:
"Encyclopedia of the Holocaust"
©1990 Macmillan Publishing Company
New York, NY 10022
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