Buchenwald concentration camp was established in July 1937. It was comprised of eighty-eight satellite camps, with the main camp located five miles northwest of Weimar, Germany. Originally, the camp held only male political prisoners, but following the November Pogrom (Kristallnacht) the Nazis began sending Jews there as well. It was not until late 1943-early 1944 that the first female prisoners arrived. Added to the mix of people interned at Buchenwald were asocials, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Roma and Sinti (Gypsies), habitual criminals, and military deserters. It was also one of the few camps that held people who either could not or would not find employment.
The Buchenwald camp system carried-out many atrocities. In addition to the harsh conditions for the prisoners, the camp also supported medical experimentation. These experiments, which led to hundreds of deaths, tested various treatments for diseases such as typhoid and diphtheria. Additionally, Buchenwald, with more than 100,000 inmates and sub-camps spread throughout Germany, became a major provider of forced labor for the Reich. The prisoners worked primarily at armaments factories, stone quarries, and construction sites. There were periodic selections and those too weak or unable to work were killed.
During the final days of the war, as allied troops approached the camp, the Germans marched over 28,000 prisoners from the camp. Buchenwald was liberated on April 11, 1945 by the 6th Armored Division of the US Third Army under the command of General George C. Patton. During its existence, more than 230,000 were imprisoned in Buchenwald. Rough estimates suggest that more than 56,000 prisoners were murdered.
You might talk about Buchenwald and the concentration camp system as part of a broader discussion of the measures the Nazis used to confine, terrorize, and murder Jews and others they singled out and how these measures evolved during the course of the Holocaust.
