"Small Camp" Buchenwald Concentration Camp near Weimar, Germany
Pictures and text by Brenda Jane Petersen
The memorial sight is located at the back of the Buchenwald Concentration Camp Grounds, where the actual main barracks where located. I took these pictures on the 30th of August, 2008, during my first and only visit to Buchenwald. This memorial was built in or around 1990, when the descendants (now living in America) of those who endured this place during the Holocaust were finally given the ear of the Eastern German Government who had ignored this camps existence until then. This memorial honors the many people who lived and died there. It was the most inhumane section of Buchenwald, Germany's most notorious "work" camp.
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This photo depicts the history of the site, "The Little Camp". The photo speaks for itself. This tablet is inside the actual memorial, there are several tablets like this one all in different languages, as if to be sure that no one misunderstands the tremendously awful acts that went on here. Which languages? |
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This is the actual memorial. It is at the front of the area where the Little Camp stood originally. It is the only part of Buchenwald that had to be totally demolished because of the stench and disease infested ground. So only the memorial is left to tell the story of what happened here. The only picture taken at the little camp was after the liberation of the prisoners. |
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I wanted this picture in my memorial because of the irony it represented. Here, on the grounds where men, women and children lost their lives -after being torn away from their families and made to endure subhuman torment- walks my friend and her son, freely. They are walking where the Small Camp and Children's Block of the camp fences met. |
