Block 66 - The Children's Block - Buchenwald Memorial

Ten underage prisoners in convict clothes sit on the floor. Some are looking directly at the camera. Behind them, the legs of three adult prisoners can be seen standing behind the children. The floor consists of dry, crumbly earth and rubble. — 1/3

Underage prisoners in the liberated Small Camp, mid-April 1945. Photo: Gérard Raphaël Algoet.

©Buchenwald Memorial

Two prisoners lead an infant by the hands past Barrack 66 while another prisoner walks behind them. They look down intently at the child. In the foreground of the picture, a dead prisoner lies on a pile of rubble. He is wrapped in a blanket, but the face is recognizable. Clothes are hanging out of the window of the barracks. — 2/3

In the liberated Small Camp, survivors take four-year-old Janek Szlajtsztajn for a walk, mid-April 1945. Photo: Gérard Raphaël Algoet.

©Buchenwald Memorial

A small, L-shaped brick wall remnant. On the low remains of the wall are deposited individual finds such as stones or parts of bottles. — 3/3

The location of Barrack 66 was marked in 1995, when many of the former children first arrived for the 50th anniversary of their liberation, 2022. Photo: Lukas Severin Damm.

©Buchenwald Memorial

During the last years of the war, the number of young people and children at Buchenwald increased. Particularly many Jewish boys came to Buchenwald as part of the evacuation transports from Auschwitz and Groß-Rosen in early 1945. In order to give them a chance of survival, prisoner functionaries and Jewish inmates set up a second children's block in Barracks 66. The first had existed since summer 1943 in Block 8, which housed Polish, Ukrainian, and Russian boys and later also Jewish, Sinti, and Roma youth. Block 66 primarily housed Jewish boys from Hungary and Poland. Many of them were orphans.

For them, the block served as a space, in which they were protected from random violence, abuse, and heavy forced labour. Prisoner functionaries and the Czech communist Antonín Kalinna took care of the boys, procuring them additional food, clothing, and heating material. When the camp was liberated, there were 904 children and youth at Buchenwald. Most of them had survived in the children's block.