Buchenwald

Mutale

2/13/12

Buchenwald was a concentration camp in Germany that opened in July 1937 and was a labor and extermination camp. It was one of the largest extermination camps in
Germany established by the Nazis. This camp was built 5 miles northeast of Weimar in east to central Germany. In 1937 Buchenwald was open for male prisoners, until 1944 when woman were admitted into the prison as well. The main field in the camp was where the prisoners were held. The SS guards and the camp administrators were located in the south part of the camp. The main camp was surrounded with barbwire, watch towers, and machine guns that were automatically activated (encyclopedia of the holocaust). Most people would think that Jewish people were the only prisoners inside the
Concentration camps, but no that is not true. In Buchenwald there were political prisoners, Jehovah witnesses and other ethnic prisoners (Jewish virtual library). There were somewhere from 500 to 1,000 women in Buchenwald. Some of these women were forced into prostitution camps . Children in Buchenwald were called the “the enemies of the state”. The children were treated very harshly. To identify the children the SS guards would tattoo there identification numbers on to their arms. These children would starve to death. Some of these children were as young as six years old and still treated just as harsh as the adults were (saldinger). The prisoners were treated very harshly .one of the harsh type of treatments they received was medical experimentation. The experiments they encountered were injections of diseases like typhus ,which resulted in multiple deaths . As an excuse for giving these shots they would say that they found a cure for being homosexual so that they would be able to inject the illnesses into prisoners(encyclopedia of the holocaust). Another example of the brutality they felt is being kicked ,beaten ,and having rocks and cold ice water thrown at them . the prisoners also had to stand outside for hours doing the Saxton salute (arms crossed behind head with knees bent ) until temporary paralyzation kicked in. also if they didn’t do what the commanders and SS guards told them they would be immediately executed (Saldinger). The uniforms that the prisoners wore were often too wide and too short because of how thin they became (Buchenwald concentration camp). Each prisoner wore a striped pair of pants and tee shirt with a hat. On their uniforms there were triangle badges and identification numbers (Buchenwald).The women in Buchenwald wore barely more than under garments .A six hundred women in this camp were dressed only in socks with holes. The shoes that the prisoners wore, wore out very quickly because of the excessive amount of work they were forced they were forced to do (Byer). In the German concentration camp, Buchenwald, the dorms that the inmates stayed in were not luxurious they weren’t even fit for animals to stay in .their beds were three levels high of long rows of bunk beds set two by two. They were assigned two people per bunk. The bunks were filled with hay and one blanket .The blankets were really small and dirty, they so small that it could barely cover one person (Buchenwald concentration camp). The prisoners hygiene wasn’t that best either. When they took showers they would go in very large groups. The “soap” that they used was not really soap but animal fat .They didn’t have towels so they would use dirty rags. Afte9r they would shower the SS guards would take them to a room where they would shave their hair and eyebrows. (Buchenwald concentration camp) . The commander of this camp was Karl Otto Koch. The 2nd command was Jacob weisburn. The 3rd in command was Pister Himmach. These commanders were very and wicked towards the inmates’