Photographs of the Buchenwald Memorial

The prisoners’ camp was surrounded by an electric fence interspersed with towers occupied by armed guards. Together, these formed an impenetrable security system. A guard path outside the fence completely encircled the camp grounds.

Photo: Lukas Severin Damm © Buchenwald Memorial

The gate building, which also served as the main watchtower and the only permissible entrance to and exit from the camp, was already built by inmates in 1937. Its left wing housed the camp prison, the dreaded “Bunker”; in the right wing were the offices of the SS “protective custody camp” commander.

Photo: Lukas Severin Damm © Buchenwald Memorial

In the left wing of the gate building, with the blind windows, were the dreaded cells of the “Bunker”. That was the name of the camp prison, which was full to capacity without interruption from February 1938 until the end: twenty-six cells to the left and right of the narrow corridor, each 2.05 m (6’ 9”) long and 1.38 m (4’ 6”) wide, with separate radiators and light switches, fold-out plank beds and steel doors.

Photo: Peter Hansen © Buchenwald Memorial Collection

The wrought-iron camp gate made in early 1938 bears the inscription "Jedem das Seine". At the order of the camp commander, it was installed in such a way as to be readable from the inside. It was to be in plain view for the inmates standing on the muster ground at all times.
The SS interpreted "to give each his due" unequivocally as the right of the members of the "superior race" to humiliate and destroy others.

Foto: Claus Bach © Gedenkstätte Buchenwald

Built by inmates in 1943, the railway line to Weimar initially served the supply needs of the armament factory adjacent to the camp. Scheduled trains could also be used by the public. From 1944 onwards, people from all of the countries occupied by Germany were deported to Buchenwald Concentration Camp, and from there to various subcamps for labour deployment. The Buchenwald railway station was also the point of departure for extermination transports to Auschwitz, and in 1945 the last stop for evacuation transports from the camps in the East.

Photo: Claus Bach © Buchenwald Memorial

Built by inmates in 1943, the railway line to Weimar initially served the supply needs of the armament factory adjacent to the camp. Scheduled trains could also be used by the public. From 1944 onwards, people from all of the countries occupied by Germany were deported to Buchenwald Concentration Camp, and from there to various subcamps for labour deployment. The Buchenwald railway station was also the point of departure for extermination transports to Auschwitz, and in 1945 the last stop for evacuation transports from the camps in the East.

Photo: Claus Bach ©  Buchenwald Memorial

The incineration system installed in it by the Topf & Söhne Company of Erfurt had been developed specifically for the needs of the SS. The work was carried out by inmates who also had their living quarters in the building.The dead were collected in the mortuary cellar and transported to the oven room with the aid of a lift, which you can see on the right side.

Photo: Claus Bach  © Gedenkstätte Buchenwald

In 1993-1994, the Grave of Ashes was marked with commemorative stones taken from the “Ehrenhain” memorial (the “Grove of Honour”, which was dedicated in 1949).

Photo: Claus Bach © Buchenwald Memorial

The metal slab is located at the site of the first memorial to the victims of the Buchenwald Concentration Camp, built on April 19, 1945. The slab is inscribed with the initials “K. L. B.“ (for Konzentrationslager Buchenwald) and bears the names of over fifty countries, in alphabetical order, representing the nationalities of all those were victims here. The central part of the slab is heated to a constant 37 degrees Celcius – the temperature of the human body. The memorial was conceived by the artists Horst Hoheisel and Andreas Knitz.

Photo: Peter Hansen © Buchenwald Memorial

Built with stones from the Buchenwald quarry on the floor area of former Jewish block no. 22, the memorial was dedicated on 9 November 1993. The inscription (Psalm 78:6), appearing in English, Hebrew and German, reads: “So that the generation to come might know, the children, yet to be born, that they too may rise and declare to their children.” The memorial was designed by the artist Tine Steen and the architect Klaus Schlosser.

Photo: Claus Bach © Buchenwald Memorial

The memorial for the murdered Sinti and Roma was erected on the former block 14, the so-called gypsy block. The names of other concentration and extermination camps can be read on the steles. The inscription in English, German and Romanes reads: "In memory of the Sinti and Roma who were victims of the Nazi genocide".

Photo: Claus Bach © Buchenwald Memorial

New permanent exhibition from 17 April 2016 "Buchenwald. Ostracism and Violence 1937 to 1945" to the history of Buchenwald Concentration Camp is located in the former depot.

Photo: Lukas Severin Damm © Buchenwald Memorial

At the beginning of the exhibition an audio-visual animation conveys – compressed into the essential – the historical stages of the political, legal and social transformation in Germany from the transfer of power to Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers’ Party in 1933 to the building of the Buchenwald concentration camp in 1937.

Photo: Claus Bach © Buchenwald Memorial

September, 1939 – Germany invades Poland, thus starting World War II, which will devastate Europe. The aim is to dominate the continent and impose a new “racial” order. Once the war is in progress, citizens of the occupied countries are also deported to the concentration camps. To an increasing degree, the camps become places of mass murder. On the left, there is a portable gallow to see, on the right the cabinet of realitities on the subject „Depersonalization and Uniformity“

Photo: Claus Bach © Buchenwald Memorial

The epilogue of the concentration camp exhibition focuses on, among others, the dealing with the Nazi crimes in both German states. The majority of the survivors never receive public recognition or compensation. Many ot them devote themselves in everyday life, politics, science, and art, to the question of what can be learned, politically and ethically, from the experience of National Socialism.

Photo: Lukas Severin Damm © Buchenwald Memorial

A model of the camp is set up on a platform in the non-camp period stairwell of the former chamber building through which the concentration camp exhibition on the second floor is exited. It is backed by a specially created viewing window with a view of the entire former camp site.

Photo: Peter Hansen © Buchenwald Memorial

The former disinfection building was built in 1942. Here, the new arrivals were first stripped of their clothing and all personal possessions, and then shaved and disinfected. Today, these rooms house the permanent exhibition, entitled “Means of Survival – Testimony – Artwork –Visual Memory”.

Photo: Moritz Meißner © Buchenwald Memorial

The former storage depot, which now houses the permanent exhibition of the Buchenwald Concentration Camp, is visible to the rear.

Photo: Claus Bach © Buchenwald Memorial

Here the wall of the building opens up to afford a view of the graveyard opposite.

Photo: Peter Hansen © Buchenwald Memorial

Photo: Claus Bach © Buchenwald Memorial

Photo: Lukas Severin Damm © Buchenwald Memorial

The graveyard, which has been landscaped as a forest cemetery, begins directly behind the former camp fence on the northern slope of the Ettersberg Mountain. It comprises some eight hundred mass graves of various sizes. They are marked by steel steles of human scale.

Photo: Lukas Severin Damm © Buchenwald Memorial

Two of the four former SS caserns are used today by the International Young People’s Centre (centre). To their right are the Visitors’ Information Centre (with bookshop) and the Museum Café.

Photo: Claus Bach © Buchenwald Memorial

Part of the memorial complex inaugurated in 1958.

Photo: Lukas Severin Damm © Buchenwald Memorial

The path leading from the Buchenwald Memorial entrance gate to the first of three circular mass graves is flanked by seven cubes representing the seven years during which the concentration camp was operated, adorned with scenes of camp life (designed by René Graetz, Waldemar Grzimek and Hans Kies; text on the reverse by Johannes R. Becher).

Photo: Lukas Severin Damm © Buchenwald Memorial

In March and April 1945, the SS buried approximately 3,000 victims in large natural hollows in the earth. Three of these mass graves were integrated into the commemorative site in the form of circular mass graves enclosed within stone walls.

Photo: Lukas Severin Damm © Buchenwald Memorial

The wide street that links the three circular mass graves is lined by brick pillars that are inscribed with the names of 18 nations.

Photo: Lukas Severin Damm © Buchenwald Memorial

The exhibition building near the memorial complex.

Photo: Naomi Tereza Salmon © Buchenwald Memorial