Buchenwald and Weimar

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Weimar, just an hour by train from Leipzig, is a wonderful historical little town. It seems like every famous German person in the history of Germany has lived in Weimar. Okay, so maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration, but Schiller, Goethe, Bach, Strauss, Nietzsche, Martin Luther, Wagner, and Marlene Dietrich all lived here at some point.

I was spending the night with Kathrin and Hendrik, who are Servas members (Servas is an organization dedicated to promoting peace and intercultural understanding). Kathrin's dad picked me up at the train station, I had tea with Kathrin, and then I hit the town. I later spent the evening with Kathrin and her daughter, Amira. We ate a typical German dinner and then Amira and I learned colors and animals in German together while we played with her toys.

I spent my day just wandering around the streets with my little map purchased from the tourist office. The small town, with about 65,000 inhabitants, is very quaint and historic. I wandered by past Schiller's house, Goethe's house, stores full of East German memorabilia, museums of all sorts, shops selling ginkgo biloba (the town is obsessed with it for some reason), and lots of little stands selling bratwurst.

The town was a major cultural center, full of writers and musicians...remember the Weimar Republic from high school history class? What I didn't know was that it was also a very important center of Nazi activity. In fact, Hitler spent so much time in Weimar that he had his own suite at the Hotel Elephant. Hendrik works at the hotel now, and he showed me the museum set up inside...turns out a lot can happen in a hotel when it's been open for over 300 years! Hendrik and Kathrin's apartment is above a café that was also a favorite of Hitler's, and they have a vintage postcard of the café with a banner up saying that they were goose-stepping along with Hitler.

It only seems fitting that such a hotbed of Nazi activity would be just a few miles away from a concentration camp. Buchenwald (meaning beech forest in German) was the first and biggest camp in Germany. An estimated 56,000 prisoners died between 1937 and 1945, even though the camp wasn't an extermination camp. The prisoners (Jews, gypsies, political prisoners, Russian POWs) were used mainly for forced labor at an armament factory or shipped to other camps, such as Auschwitz. They were also used to build the railway to the camp and to clean up towns and villages following Allied air raids.

The camp, as it stands today, was not what I was expecting. It was pretty much completely destroyed in the 50s, so when you walk through the front gate, you see mainly a lot of gravel with some buildings scattered around the edges. I went to the camp two days after the 65th anniversary of the liberation, so there were still survivors visiting with their families and flowers and wreaths everywhere. This made it even more heartbreaking.

The gate, from the inside, reads "Jedem das Seine" which literally translates as "To Each His Own" but figuratively means "you get what you deserve." Oh, and it's read from inside the camp as you look out. Real nice, Nazis. The front gate, watch towers, crematorium, canteen, and depot are still intact and have been largely reconstructed. The crematorium was very disturbing, even though I didn't get to see the ovens (the door was closed and locked for some reason). They had rooms set up to look like a typical physician's examination room, but when the prisoner stood against the wall to get his height measured, they would shoot him in the back of the neck through a slit in the wall. They killed 8,000 Soviet prisoners of war this way.

There are so many sick stories of what happened in the camp that it's impossible to imagine people were actually cruel enough to orchestrate such things. How could anyone ever think it's acceptable to treat other human beings that way?

The camp was liberated by the Americans on April 11, 1945, but most of the prisoners had already been taken away on a death march. Among those liberated was a four-year-old boy who had been hidden and taken care of in the camp.

When Germany was split up after the war, Buchenwald fell under Soviet control geographically. After finding out how horribly the Nazis treated the Russians in the camp, guess what the Soviets did? Yup, they threw 28,000 Nazis in the camp for a few years. Not just Nazi, but also Hitler Youth and anyone even remotely suspected of Nazi collaboration or sympathies. It was only after 7,000 more people died and the camp was closed for good that it was finally destroyed.

The trip didn't hit me as hard as I had expected it to. I think part of the problem was that they didn't rebuild the barracks. Not being able to see where the prisoners lived took away a very important aspect of the experience, in my opinion. I hope to visit Auschwitz in the future, and I think everyone should see a concentration camp. Perhaps seeing the atrocities of the past will promote peace and tolerance for the present and future.

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Photos

Jedem Das Seine
"To Each His Own" written on the gate of Buchenwald

Comments

[Julia]

That hotel is older than our country. Europe is so cool. I like how the flowers contrast so strongly with the tragedy of Buchenwald. Without the captions it looks like a beautiful, innocuous place.

[Aunt Marie]

Kate-what a sad place. You certainly are giving yourself an education. Is that from reading all those books you read so furiously when you were growing up-your desire to travel and see the world. I admire you so much. Love Aunt Marie

[Karin]

Hello Kate, Your photos are postcard quality. It must have been emotional being at the concentration camp. Maybe you can take me there some day.Love you! Mom

[Wendy Walker Cushing]

Wow!
An overwhelming silence and pain in my heart for those that endured such a tragedy engulfs my body when I read of this and see these pictures...thanks for sharing. I have never been to see anything like this but my husband has and tells me you can feel their spirits when you are visiting one of these places.