HISTORIES OF THE HOLOCAUST
BUCHENWALD 1937-42

RUNTIME: 73 MINS

CAT: AWA214
UPC: 881482321490
RRP: $17.95

Weimar was geographically and culturally the heart of Germany. It was the birthplace of the Weimar Republic, the republic established in 1919 to replace Germany’s imperial government, and was also home to some of the greatest citizens of the German nation. 

But, while for many it was a heaven on Earth, for those imprisoned in the nearby Buchenwald Concentration Camp, one of the largest in Germany, it was a living hell. While Weimar may have been famous for illustrious men as Bach, Nietzsche and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the unspeakable cruelty and brutality of Buchenwald would make it infamous.

This program documents the events of Buchenwald ‘37-’42, where prisoners were savagely punished for the slightest infraction of the rules. Inmates would freeze in -20° temperatures and were worked to death; the guard dogs enjoyed significantly better living conditions. The camp was originally built to house 8,000 inmates, but by 1942’s end, numbers had already exceeded 14,000! 

Never an extermination camp like Auschwitz, Buchenwald was a labor camp, but it made every aspect of life within its fences a torture where mistreatment by the guards was not only encouraged, it was compulsory.