In July 1937, Buchenwald, one of the largest concentration camps in Nazi Germany, opened

In July 1937, Buchenwald, one of the largest concentration camps in Nazi Germany, opened. Over the next eight years, some 250,000 people were imprisoned there. 

At first, Buchenwald was designated for male prisoners only—including political prisoners, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Sinti and Roma, and Jews. Prisoners not only faced brutal, unsanitary conditions, but some were also subjected to forced medical experimentations.

At the time of the camp’s liberation in April 1945, conditions were dire: “I saw human beings, human beings that had been beaten, they'd been starved, they’d been tortured. They’d been denied everything, everything that would make anyone’s life livable. There they were standing in front of me, and they were skin and bone,” remembered American soldier Leon Bass. At least 56,000 male prisoners died in the camp.

Pictured here are survivors of Buchenwald following liberation. 

Photo: USHMM, courtesy of Hadassah Bimko Rosensaft