Michael Abrams / S&S
The gate to the Buchenwald concentration camp on the outskirts of Weimar, Germany. Of the more than 250,000 people who entered these gates and were held captive between 1937 and 1945, more than 50,000 died inside the complex.
Michael Abrams / S&S
A visitor to the Buchenwald Memorial, site of the Nazi concentration camp, looks at a display of prisoners' photos in the memorial's museum.
Michael Abrams / S&S
A sobering sight with a clear meaning: The crematorium at the former concentration camp that was Buchenwald.
Michael Abrams / S&S
The reconstructed barbed-wire fencing and guard tower show how hard it was for a prisoner to escape from the Buchenwald concentration camp.
Michael Abrams / S&S
A view inside the “Bunker,” or arrest cells, in the west wing of the gatehouse at Buchenwald.
A cold, easterly wind blows across the hillside, chilling to the bone. But even without the wind, you would feel a chill here. It is a place of hard labor, torture and death.
It is called Buchenwald, and once was the site of a Nazi concentration camp.
Located on the outskirts of Weimar, Germany, a city known more for literary giants Goethe and Schiller than for the horrors of war, the camp was established in July 1937.
From then until April 11, 1945, when units of the U.S. 3rd Army drove the SS away and the prisoners opened the gates, more than 250,000 were held here and more than 50,000 died.
Following the war, and up to the fall of the Iron Curtain, Buchenwald was in East Germany, or the German Democratic Republic as it was officially called. Much of the camp was demolished in 1951 when the East Germans began to build a memorial to anti-Fascist resistance. In 1958, the memorial and a monument — the soaring clock tower you pass on the way to the camp — was inaugurated.
After 1989, much of the camp and the museum was upgraded and new memorials to the Nazis’ victims were added.
Today the former camp and the monument is known as the Buchenwald Memorial (Gedenkstätte) and is dedicated to the memory of those who suffered here.
The first stop on a visit to Buchenwald should be at the reception center/bookstore/cinema. Here you can pick up a guidebook and watch the 30-minute movie about the camp.
Then walk down to the camp gate with its iron gate and the inscription “Jedem das Seine,” or “Each to His Own.”
Before passing through the gate, however, go in the door to the left and enter the arrest cells known as the “Bunker.” Here is a long, narrow line of cells where prisoners were tortured and held until their execution. Photos of prisoners hang on the cell walls.
One of the photos is of Johann Lang, father of seven children. He was murdered in his cell on Feb. 22, 1940.
Pass though the gate and walk through the wasteland of what was the prisoners barracks. Nothing is left of them, but you can still see their foundations and outlines.
As you walk past them, you will see the memorials to the groups of people who were prisoners here. Bulgarians, Jehovah’s Witnesses, conscientious objectors, Soviet prisoners of war, women and children and Jews.
A memorial for the “Small Camp,” a camp for the sick and dying and once separated from the main camp by barbed wire, is one of the newest. It was erected in 2002 by the Buchenwald foundation and the United States Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad. It was designed by Stephen B. Jacobs of New York, a Buchenwald survivor.
One of the most striking memorials is the one to the murdered Sinti and Roma Gypsies. Stone slabs with the names of Nazi concentration camps engraved on them are topped, Jewish style, by rocks in memory of the dead.
The museum is in what used to be the camp’s storehouse. It covers two floors, has six sections and follows the history of the camp from the beginning to liberation. In it are gripping stories of the people who lived and died here.
Next door is the Disinfection Building. It houses the chambers used to disinfect the prisoners’ personal effects. The rest of the building is now an art museum.
From there it is a short walk to the crematorium.
If the ovens are a disturbing sight, the basement is the hell of this horror house. One of its walls is lined with hooks where about 1,100 people were strangled to death, including one Ivan Belevez. He was 8 years old.
Sadly, after the camp’s liberation, the horrors did not stop at Buchenwald. From 1945 to 1950, the Soviets continued the camp’s tragic tradition. About 28,000 people were held here, and 7,000 of them died. They were buried in mass graves. Trees have grown over them. In 1995, a forest of steel pillars were set up among the trees to honor the victim buried below.
More information ...
Where: The Buchenwald Memorial is about six miles north of Weimar, Germany. Take Autobahn 4 (E40) toward Weimar and exit at Nohra. Follow sings to Nohra and turn right on to highway B7 and follow toward Weimar. Follow B7 around Weimar (do not head into the town center) and soon there will be signs to Gedenkstätte Buchenwald. There is plenty of free parking there.
Bus No. 6 leaves from Weimar’s Goetheplatz and main train station for Buchenwald. (Take the “Buchenwald” bus, not the bus showing “Ettersberg.”)
When: The former camp, the monument and burial grounds are open daily, but the museum and exhibitions are closed Mondays. Opening hours are 8:45 a.m. to 5 p.m. (last entry 4:15 p.m.) Tuesday through Sunday from Oct. 1 to April 30, and from 9:45 a.m. to 6 p.m. (last entry 4:15 p.m.) from May 1 to Sept. 30.
Cost: Entrance is free, but a donation is appreciated. You might want to bring money to spend at the snack bar next to the bookstore.
More info: There is a 30-minute film on the concentration camp with English subtitles that is shown several times a day in the theater at the reception/ bookstore. Here you can also rent an audio tour of the camp for three euros. There is a fold-out guide of the memorial that costs 25 cents and an 88- page booklet for 1.80 euros for sale in the bookstore.
Visit the Web site, www.buchenwald.de and click on the English link for additional details.
— Michael Abrams
This article is provided courtesy of Stars & Stripes, which got its start as a newspaper for Union troops during the Civil War, and has been published continuously since 1942 in Europe and 1945 in the Pacific. Stripes reporters have been in the field with American soldiers, sailors and airmen in World War II, Korea, the Cold War, Vietnam, the Gulf War, Bosnia and Kosovo, and are now on assignment in the Middle East. Stars & Stripes Website
