Talk:Buchenwald concentration camp
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This page was blanked and listed for speedy deletion by anonymous user 152.163.100.199. It may pay to keep an eye on it. Lisiate 23:14, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Which Essen is meant in the section on female prisoners? Saintswithin 10:22, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Illegal
I removed the word "illegal" from the following sentence: "The camp was also the site of large-scale illegal testing of vaccines for epidemic typhus..." due to it being superfluous. Clearly, as testing was being performed by an official government branch, it was not technically illegal. As for its legality in international post-war courts, this is more or less irrelevant in the sentence.
I do not mean to nitpick, but the reason I remove this bit is that it might confuse people. Not removing the word "illegal" may lead one to think that the camp commanders were, contrary to orders from the central nazi government, experimenting on humans. This would then be faulty. --TVPR 00:11, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Liberated by Americans or liberated by prisoners?
German Wikipedia writes that the camp was not liberated by the Americans but self-liberated by the prisoners. I will give the article a factual accuracy warning. See also this German language website [1] Andries 18:27, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
The Nazis left the camp before the US Army arrived. So I wonder whether the term 'liberated' is correct at all? 'Liberation' implies a specific action. A good description of the event is at: ww.remember.org/witness/herder.html I'll have a go at editing the article and remove the warning. --Maustrauser 06:48, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
my grandfather was in this camp... i think it was here that his brother and father died. They were given a death injection 2 weeks before liberation.
I believe that there was a prisoner revolt in Buchenwald, at least, that's what I here from my grandfather and grandmother, both survivors.
- According to Martin Gilbert's The Holocaust, "On April 8 [1945], almost all the Jewish inmates at Buchenwald ... were marched out, leaving the non-Jewish prisoners to await the arrival of the Americans. ... A few Jews had managed to hide in Buchenwald during the 'evacuation' of April 8... Three days after most of the Jews had been marched out of the camp, American forces arrived.' (p 792). Sounds as if there was a three day period when the camp was under the control of the inmates (ie the Nazis had all left) before the arrival of the US army. Neither 'revolt' or 'liberation' seems to fit exactly. Squiddy | (squirt ink?) 17:29, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
In archives of the Dutch Institute of War Documentation (NIOD) are a number of accounts of inmates, written in 1945 and 1946. They stem from Dutch and German inmates. They describe that a part of the SS left the camp accompanying mainly Jewish and Russian prisoners who were evacuated in deadly marshes to other destinations. In the period 1942-45 German communists had organized 850 prisoners of different nationalities in military groups existing of 5 men. Many of them had fought in the Spanish civil war. It is not clear whether due to the evacuation all these 850 men were still available. Arms had been organized since 1942. In 1945 they had one machine gun with 2000 shots ammunition, 91 rifles a few pistols and a number of knifes and swords. When the first American troops approached the camp the guards at the watchtowers started to shoot at unknown targets, maybe they were just nervous. At that moment communist groups stormed the watchtowers and killed the guards. In the accounts stemming from a German inmate especially the importance of the contribution of Belgian inmates is mentioned. A few hours later an American officer came at the main gate and told that an American tank colonna did pass the camp and that the prisoners should protect themselves. For this self protection were also available the arms they looted from the German guards and stocks. Two days later American troops took over control of the camp and the inmates handed over their arms. So, in some way you can call it a self liberation, but without the leave of a major part of the SS and without the presence of American troops in the immediate neighbourhood the self liberation would have had no chance of success.
The archives of the USHHM has a good picture of post-liberation worship meeting - gives rabbi's name - many/thousands? were in one hall - very healthy looking. 159.105.80.141 19:26, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Photo
That's a horrible photo, can barely tell what it is (upside down guy behind a fence, I assume dead?), defeintely has to be changed. Sherurcij (talk) (Terrorist Wikiproject) 21:02, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
I don't see it mentioned anywhere that Buchenwald was a prison before the war
[edit] The horrors aren't described.
The current text includes this sentence "It was used to house German prisoners, and Soviet records indicate that over 7,000 died." but there is no mention of the numbers who died while the camp was run by the Nazis. Likely the number was 100 times that, or more.... is it really enough to say that prisoners were used for labor? It was *not* a POW labor camp. It was a concentration/death camp.
It is true that it was a concentration camp. But there have been murdered tens of thousands of Russian POW's in a very cruel way.
[edit] Die Hexe von Buchenwald
I question whether Ilse Koch was really known informally as "The Bitch of Buchenwald". Bitch (Huendin) and witch (Hexe) are not homonyms in German, and bitch is not used as an insult, either. The German version of the Buchenwald KZ article just calls her "Hexe" and makes no mention of other descriptions. Anything to back up that she was called "Bitch of Buchenwald"? Pending that, I'll change the sentence to something along the lines that the name loosely translates as "Bitch etc" YggdrasilsRoot 15:17, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
The best translation is whatever English word best conveys the sense of the German word. I would think that "bitch" or even "beast" would be better here than "witch". In English we don't think of witches as particularly cruel and brutal. However someone has monkeyed around with your edit, and it looks odd. I will change it back. 144.9.8.21 19:05, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Elie Wiesel at Buchenwald?
The picture at the top of the page on the right hand side says Elie Wiesel can be seen in a photo taken from Buchenwald. Elie Wiesel is the author of the book Night, a true account story of his life during the Holocaust, and I happen to have read a large portion of the book just last night. I read nothing about Buchenwald. He was taken straight from the ghetto in Hungary to Auschwitz-Birkenau, what I recall to be a four-day train ride. Buchenwald is in Germany, and Auschwitz is in Poland. Not only did he mention nothing of Buchwald, but Buchenwald is a very illogical checkpoint to go through on your way from Hungary to Poland. Someone might care to research this further and either correct or remove the photograph and its caption.
I've learned Wiesel was taken from Auschwitz to Buchenwald near the end of the war. This subject can be deleted.
[edit] Aftermath documentation??
This entire section lacks documentation and is subject to deletion. Can anyone provide credible citations? Thanks.Skywriter 22:13, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Second Request for Documentation
My request for documentation was reverted by HanzoHattori who does not seem to grasp the need for and requirement for documentation. The above request for documentation is reinstated and I ask this new and apparently inexperienced user to please avoid labeling colleagues as "trolls" or "vandals" as this is both off-putting and can quickly lead to troubles. Thank you. Skywriter 18:54, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Liberated by uprising of Communist prisoners
It wasn't "evacuated" - the guards fled. Communists were previously priviledged, and they all wore worker's caps or berets. They were also relatively well fed.
Someone correct this. HanzoHattori 11:58, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Bad English or true, in which case, where's the source?
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- It was used to house German prisoners, and Soviet records indicate that over 7,000 died.
Sound like the 7000 German prisoners died here. Is this correct? Source?
While we're at it this article seems to lack source all over, no?
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- Yes, 7,113 Germans died in Special camp #2 at Buchenwald between 1945 and 1950. My source is "Buchenwald, A tour of the memorial site" purchased at the Buchenwald memorial. Sorry...no ISBN on the guide book. Motorfix 23:09, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
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- "Many thousands of prisoners (estimates range from 12,000 to over 22,000) would die at the camp while in the Soviet Union's control"
Where do these figures come from? The official Soviet records indicate that 7,113 persons died at the camp during Soviet control. See the KZ Buchenwald website for this (click on History, then Soviet Special Camp, then scroll down to penultimate paragraph). It is possible that more people died than was recorded, but the official figure should certainly be mentioned and the current figures need referencing. They sound rather high. Dross2 17:38, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Ettersburg
The word "Buchenwald" (German for "beech forest") was chosen because the Nazi authorities were not willing to name it after the Ettersburg (the keep) or Ettersberg (the mountain)...
Is that correct? --Plankton5005 17:32, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
