The prisoners at Buchenwald Concentration Camp in Weimar, Germany, were liberated by American troops on this day in 1945. Over eight years, around 250,000 people were imprisoned at the camp, over a fifth of whom were killed. Conditions were extremely poor, with all prisoners intentionally starved and susceptible to severe illness. People died from numerous causes, including malnutrition, execution, and exhaustion from slave labor.
Buchenwald was established in 1937 to hold 8,000 prisoners who would work nearby clay deposits that could generate profit for the Schutzstaffel, the military organization that ran the camp. It held communists, Jews, Poles, mentally ill people, physically disabled people, Freemasons, and others. There were also over 100 “subcamps” around Buchenwald that were used for arms production.
As the U.S. troops approached, the Germans started evacuating tens of thousands of prisoners to prevent their rescue. An underground resistance movement slowed that effort, allowing the U.S. soldiers to catch up and save many prisoners. Over half had already been sent on “death marches” away from the camps, however, dubbed as such because many forced on those marches died, and often, were murdered. Still, over 21,000 people were freed on April 11.
There’s more information on Buchenwald at the Holocaust Encyclopedia, a project of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.
