Information is Collected and Organized

Since 1945, collecting the reports of surviving inmates has made a significant contribution towards understanding the realities of the situation at the Buchenwald Concentration Camp. In the very first days after liberation, over 100 survivors, most of whom had held certain functions at the camp, produced some 150 reports on their experiences at the request of the U.S. Army.

The former Austrian inmate and journalist Eugen Kogon studied the eyewitness accounts and used them in the first standard work on the system of the concentration camps, titled "SS-Staat" (published in English as "The Theory and Practice of Hell").  

The bibliography of the written works by foreign authors about the Buchenwald Concentration Camp includes well over 1,000 works.

In the GDR, a prominent role was played Walter Bartel, member of the camp's illegal Communist Party leadership, under whose direction the compilation of personal testimonies and documents was published under the title "Buchenwald. Mahnung und Verpflichtung." Under the premise of highlighting the successful international resistance struggle, for decades he determined which stories were told about Buchenwald in the GDR – and which were left untold.