Buchenwald Concentration Camp Essay

Buchenwald Concentration Camp

56,000 prisoners including Jews and Soviet Prisoners died at Buchenwald concentration camp (Buchenwald Camp Survivors n.p.). Buchenwald concentration camp was located in the Northern Slope of Ettersberg, Germany. (Buchenwald Concentration Camp n.p). At Buchenwald around 250,000 men, women, and children were held there. Sadly, many people did not survive and the ones that did were lucky. Buchenwald affected the Holocaust because it was setup to hurt people, the living conditions were harsh, and many people died. Buchenwald concentration camp was set up to work people to death. The goal was not to kill people,but rather have them work so hard that they would die. Buchenwald was given its name by Heinrich Himmler on

This was the first group of prisoners. The group contained mostly of political deities and criminals (Buchenwald Concentration Camp n.p). Many more prisoners followed after this day where most of them were humiliated, suffered, and died. Since there were so many prisoners held captive at Buchenwald they had three different sections to split up the people. The first section was called the Large Camp and this is where they housed the prisoners'. The small camp is where prisoners were kept in quarantine. Lastly, the tent camp was set up for Polish prisoners sent to Buchenwald after the German invasion of Poland, in 1939 (Purdy n.p.). Buchenwald Concentration Camp was very cruel to the people who were held captive there.

Life at Buchenwald concentration camp was awful. Once people arrived, they were separated by gender. All the men went into one group and the women went into another group. All the children went with the women, as well. Many families and friends were split up and most of them never saw each other again. Then, all of the people had to give away their clothes and belonging ( Axelrod page 19). The new clothes the prisoners received were blue and white striped pants, a faded blue jacket, a striped cap,