The legacies at Buchenwald

The legacies at Buchenwald

Acknowledgements This source collection is made by Chris Rowe with the support of Buchenwald Memoriall.This collection is part of the unit “Internment without a trial: Examples from the Nazi and Soviet regimes” that is developed in the Multi-Facetted Memory project.

More informationwww.euroclio.eu/multi-facetted-memory

Buchenwald’s original purpose and existence ended in May 1945 when the camp was liberated and the Third Reich collapsed in defeat and disgrace. The camp was then re-invented by the Soviet regime as a ‘special camp’ for political prisoners; this camp was closed in 1950. Since that time, the Buchenwald site has been a place frozen in the past, a place of ghosts and tragic memory. Buchenwald’s existence was short: just under eight years as a Nazi concentration camp, and about five years as a Soviet special camp. Its legacy has been lasting and will long remain; it is difficult to conceive of a time when Buchenwald, or any of the other camps could be used for any other purpose than for remembrance and reflection.

The legacy is not only lasting but also complicated by competing ways of remembering - and forgetting; and manipulating – the past. For 45 years after its liberation, Buchenwald was in the Eastern, Communist half of Cold War Europe, and this was reflected in the way the camp. And its liberation, was commemorated. In the Cold War, two rival ideologies influenced two rival ways of ‘learning the lessons of the past’.

In 1989-90, the Cold War ended and Buchenwald became part of the new reunified Germany. Its legacy had to be reassessed and re-interpreted to teach a new generation new lessons about history and memory, linking the tragic past to the democratic, multiperspective values of a new generation.

April 1945

Buchenwald was the first concentration camp to be liberated by a Western Allied army. Press coverage took place immediately in the form of reports, films and photos, and had a deep and lasting impact on the Western world’s perception of the National Socialist crimes and the realities of the camps. (Public Domain)

"I have never felt able to describe my emotional reactions when I first came face to face with indisputable evidence of Nazi brutality and ruthless disregard of every shred of decency. … I have never at any other time experienced an equal sense of shock. …As soon as I returned to Patton’s headquarters that evening I sent communications to both Washington and London, urging the two governments to send instantly to Germany a random group of newspaper editors and representative groups from the national legislatures. I felt that the evidence should be immediately placed before the American and British publics in a fashion that would leave no room for cynical doubt.“

Quote by Dwight D. Eisenhower, the supreme commander of the Allied forces, one day after the liberation of Buchenwald.

In April of 1945 a American Congressional group visited the Buchenwald Camp.

Public Domain

After the liberation, American troops guided the Weimar citizens to walk through the camp with them to show what had happened.

April 1945 (Public Domain)

Grove of Honour

Gedenkstätte Buchenwald

At the 50’s the most of the camp constructions were demolished.

Gedenkstätte Buchenwald

The "Nationale Mahn- und Gedenkstätte Buchenwald" ("National Buchenwald Memorial") was dedicated on 14 September 1958.

SGBuMD

On the night of 17 August 1944, the SS executed Ernst Thälmann, a former member of the Reichstag and chairman of the German Communist Party, in the crematorium.

A memorial plaque on the wall of the crematorium commemorates him. (Photo to Peter Hansen)

1950’s

A memorial plaque on the wall of the crematorium commemorates him. (Photo to Peter Hansen)Gedenkstätte Buchenwald

Rudolf Breitscheid memorial (1960)

Gedenkstätte Buchenwald

Memorial to Henri Manhès (1961)

Gedenkstätte Buchenwald

Commemorative stone "Political Inmates from Bulgaria" (1970)

Gedenkstätte Buchenwald

The graveyards of the Soviet special camp

At the end of 1989, the public learned of the existence of graveyards where the victims of the Soviet special camp were buried. The anonymous mass graves to the north of the camp and near the railway station were marked with steel steles and landscaped as forest cemeteries. In February 1990, the memorial erected the first cross in the northern graveyard. That site eventually became an place of individual mourning with crosses and commemorative stones. (Photo: Naomi Tereza Salmon, Gedenkstätte Buchenwald)

The first wooden cross erected by the memorial in early 1990 in commemoration of the victims of the Soviet Special Camp.

SGBuMD

Jewish memorial (1993)

Gedenkstätte Buchenwald

Memorial to the Sinti and Roma victims (1995)

Gedenkstätte Buchenwald

Memorial to all inmates of Buchenwald Concentration Camp (1995)

Gedenkstätte Buchenwald

Permanent exhibition

Members of the memorial staff working on the permanent exhibition on the history of Buchenwald Concentration Camp in preparation for its opening on 8 April 1995. (SGBuMD)

Memorial site for Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Friedrich von Rabenau and Ludwig Gehre (1999)

Gedenkstätte Buchenwald

Commemorative stone for victims of the National Socialist military judiciary (2001)

Gedenkstätte Buchenwald

"Little Camp" Memorial (2002)

Gedenkstätte Buchenwald

Stone in memory of the Jehovah’s Witnesses (2002)

Gedenkstätte Buchenwald

Stone commemorating the women of Buchenwald Concentration Camp

(2003)

Gedenkstätte Buchenwald

Restauration

The ascent by way of a wide, light-hued stairway leads to the world-famous figural group by Fritz Cremer (restored in 2002–2005). It is dedicated to the resistance struggle in the camp. (Photo: Jürgen M. Pietsch, Gedenkstätte Buchenwald)

Commemorative stone for gay men (2006)

Gedenkstätte Buchenwald

Commemorative stone for members of the Allied Air Force (2014)

Gedenkstätte Buchenwald

"Der SS-Staat”

The cover of the original edition of "Der SS-Staat" by Eugen Kogon, 1947. The own author was prisoner in Buchenwald. His book is a comprehensive representation of the German concentration camps and is considered the first historical analysis of the Nazi terror)

The cattle truck

Jorge Semprún (1923-2011) is a recognized Spanish who mostly lived in France and even wrote primarily in French. In 1942 he joined the Spanish Communist Party in the exile in France but consequently he was arrested by the Gestapo as a member of the French resistance against Nazism. He was send to Buchenwald between 1943 and 1945. The experience of 18 months of confinement underlayed/marked his whole life and it is reflected in all his works, specially in The cattle truck (1963), Quel Beau Dimanche (1980) and Writing and life (1994).

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This collection is part of the unit “Internment without a trial: Examples from the Nazi and Soviet regimes”