Mahn- und Gedenkstätte Buchenwald

MUSEUM MEMORIAL

A few kilometers outside the city center you can reach Ettersberg in a northerly direction. Here is the former camp of numerous prisoners of the labor camp "Buchenwald" - a dark chapter of German history. This place of horror and horror is today an important memorial against destruction. Only a few kilometers away from the classic city of Weimar, a concentration camp was built in 1937 under the SS, a terrorist and repressive organ of the National Socialists.

By 1945, about 266,000 people from all over Europe were imprisoned in the camp - until the end of the war, it even developed into the largest concentration camp in the former German Reich. The prisoners were forced to work for the defense industry under terrible conditions. They died of torture, medical experiments, malnutrition and exhaustion.

After the end of the Second World War and the withdrawal of the US troops, individual areas of the area were used by the Soviet occupying forces as a special camp No. 2. It was one of a total of 10 camps and three prisons in the Soviet occupation zone. Significantly, officials of the NSDAP were interned there. External contacts were not permitted and legal proceedings did not take place.

In 2016, the inauguration of the new permanent exhibition in the former chamber building on the history of the concentration camp took place, while in the disinfection building art from the storage period to the present day can be seen. In addition to objects and memorabilia of former prisoners, the exhibition also shows a considerable number of documents, photos and interviews – coming from extensive research in Germany and abroad.

You should plan enough time for a visit to the memorial and memorial site: The tour, starting at the camp gate, goes through the former SS area, the crematorium and the camp, it takes about 2 hours; The documentary has a length of about half an hour.

It also takes time to visit the memorial complex on the south side of  Ettersberg and for the exhibitions. Visiting the Buchenwald and Mittelbau Dora memorials is not only a matter of history for Weimar school classes, but also numerous students throughout Germany commemorate the victims of National Socialism each year.