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Erinnerung an Verbrechen

Auf dem Ettersberg bei Weimar bestand von 1937 bis 1945 das Konzentrationslager Buchenwald, in dem über 250 000 Menschen aus fast 50 Nationen inhaftiert waren; mehr als 50 000 Menschen überlebten das Lager nicht.
Neben vier ständigen Ausstellungen sind zu besichtigen: Gelände des ehemaligen Konzentrationslagers, Torgebäude mit Arrestzellenbau, Wachtürme, Krematorium, Kammergebäude und Desinfektion, Bahnhof, SS-Bereiche, Steinbruch und Friedhöfe.  Ebenso zugänglich ist das Mahnmal mit der weltberühmten Figurengruppe von Fritz Cremer am Glockenturm. 
Im August 1945 wurde das Gelände von der sowjetischen Besatzungsmacht als Internierungslager (Speziallager Nr. 2) genutzt. Bis 1950 waren hier 28 000 Menschen inhaftiert, über 7000 starben.   Textquelle

 

WIKIPEDIA


 

Foto: Volker Rosenau, Weimar

Buchenwald concentration camp (German: Konzentrationslager (KZ) Buchenwald, 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.

Camp prisoners from all over Europe and Russia—Jews, non-Jewish Poles and Slovenes, religious and political prisoners, Roma and Sinti, Jehovah's Witnesses, criminals, homosexuals, and prisoners of war— worked primarily as forced labor in local armament factories.[1] From 1945 to 1950, the camp was used by the Soviet occupation authorities as an internment camp, known as NKVD special camp number 2.

 

In 1937, the Nazis constructed Buchenwald concentration camp, near Weimar, Germany. Placed over the camp's main entrance gate, was the slogan Jedem das Seine (literally "to each his own", but figuratively "everyone gets what he deserves”). The camp was operational until its liberation in 1945. Between 1945 and 1950 the former camp was used by the Soviet Union as an NKVD special camp for Nazis. On 6 January 1950, the Soviets handed over Buchenwald to the East German Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Originally the camp was named after the hill Ettersberg but it was later renamed to Buchenwald (German for beech forest) because of the close ties of the location to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who was being idealized as “the embodiment of the German Spirit” (Verkörperung des deutschen Geistes). The Goethe Eiche (Goethe's Oak) stood inside the camp's perimeter,and the stump of the tree is preserved as part of the memorial at KZ Buchenwald.

Between April 1938 and April 1945, some 238,380 people of various nationalities including 350 Western Allied POWs were incarcerated in Buchenwald. One estimate places the number of deaths in Buchenwald at 56,000.

During an American bombing raid on August 24, 1944 that was directed at a nearby armament factory, several bombs, including incendiaries, also fell on the camp, resulting in heavy casualties amongst the prisoners.

 

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