July 15, 1937
Buchenwald Concentration Camp Opens
Historical context
On this day, July 15, 1937, the SS opened Buchenwald near Weimar. The first prisoners arrived that day from Sachsenhausen.
Archive record
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- Date
- July 15, 1937
- Verified sources
- 1
- Archive threads
- 4
On this day, the SS opened the Buchenwald concentration camp on the Ettersberg, northwest of Weimar. The first prisoners arrived from Sachsenhausen and were forced to build the camp. USHMM dates that opening to 15 July 1937. The camp held men first; women were sent later. After Kristallnacht, German police sent thousands of Jewish men there.
USHMM records that camp authorities murdered at least 56,000 prisoners in the Buchenwald system, including about 11,000 Jews. The April 1945 liberation is a separate story. This article dates the opening, not those later killings.
Research trail
Sources and further reading
- Buchenwald Concentration Camp Opens · United States Holocaust Memorial Museum · Holocaust Encyclopedia View source
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