Krysti: Excursions III

During our last day in Weimar, we took a side trip to the Buchenwald Concentration Camp - a forced labor camp used by the Nazis and then later by the Soviet Union as a prison for Nazi criminals.

This was my first time visiting a concentration camp and it was intense at times. Although many of the buildings had been destroyed during bombings or removed by the Soviets, the Crematoria and the execution room, along with the guard towers and the prison still remained. It was a very somber place, and even though we were on a guided tour, not many people, other than our tour guide, talked.

The camp was originally formed as a place to send political prisoners, but then later Jews along with others disliked by the Nazis were sent to the camp to be put to work, basically until they died. "In the eight years of its existence from July 1937 to March 1945, a total of 238,980 prisoners from thirty countries passed through Buchenwald and its satellite camps, of these 43,045 were killed or perished in some other fashion there, (Holocaust Research Project)." Most of these people died from sickness, exhaustion, or starvation, but some were also executed by SS soldiers.

There was some resistance present within the camp during this time and successful efforts were made to hide a group of children, who if found would have been sent to Auschwitz. Luckily this didn't happen and the children survived until liberation in 1945 - during which time the resistance took control and set up the first memorial for all those who had died at the camp. At the same time the Allies forced 1,000 citizens from the city of Weimar to walk through the camp, to see the still visible signs of death and destruction - the Allies couldn't understand how the citizens were able to just sit by and watch this happen, and wanted them to fully experience what it was that had been taking place right in their back yard.

Today the camp is used as a memorial site for all those who died during Nazi control, and is regularly visited by political leaders, such as President Obama who visited the camp last summer to make a speech. "President Barack Obama made an emotional visit to the former Nazi concentration camp at Buchenwald, Germany, Friday, saying that the camp should serve as a reminder of humanity's duty to fight the spread of evil. The visit had personal significance for the president, whose great-uncle helped liberate prisoners from the camp during World War II. 'I will not forget what I've seen here today,' Obama said after touring the camp with German Chancellor Angela Merkel; Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel, and survivor Bertrand Herz, (CNN)."

Even though the camp is no longer a camp today, one can definitely still feel and sense the awful things that took place there. Like I said, it was intense, but something that I feel like I needed to experience.