70 years ago on this date, April 11, 1945, the American forces liberate the Buchenwald concentration camp. I will post information about this Concentration Camp from Wikipedia and other links.
 |
Watchtowerat the memorial site Buchenwald, in 1983 |
Buchenwald concentration camp (German: Konzentrationslager (KZ) Buchenwald, IPA:[ˈbuːxənvalt]; literally, in English: beech forest) was a German Nazi concentration camp established on the Ettersberg (Etter Mountain) near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937, one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps on German soil, following Dachau's opening just over four years earlier.
Prisoners from all over Europe and the Soviet Union—Jews, Poles and other Slavs, the mentally ill and physically-disabled from birth defects, religious and political prisoners, Roma and Sinti, Freemasons, Jehovah's Witnesses (then called Bible Students), criminals, homosexuals, and prisoners of war—worked primarily as forced labor in local armaments factories. From 1945 to 1950, the camp was used by the Soviet occupation authorities as an internment camp, known as NKVD special camp number 2.
Today the remains of Buchenwald serve as a memorial and permanent exhibition and museum.
History
People
Camp commandants
Female prisoners and overseers
Allied airmen
Death toll at Buchenwald
Causes of death
Number of deaths
Liberation from Nazi Germany
Soviet Special Camp 2
Demolition of the camp
Nazi personnel
Notable inmates
Camp literature
Modern times
Visit from President Obama and Chancellor Merkel
OTHER LINKS: