Quarry - Buchenwald Memorial

View of the quarry. It runs terraced ascending. In the foreground a small hut. In the background: Waffen SS barracks above the quarry. In the center: Ramp with lorry tracks. To the right and left: prisoners at work. — 1/2

Quarry. In the background the barracks of the Waffen-SS, 1943. Photo: identification service of the Buchenwald concentration camp.

©Musée de la Résistance et de la Déportation, Besançon

A rusty tipper truck and its rusty rail undercarriage. In the background partly bare, partly overgrown steep slopes. — 2/2

Findings such as carts and tools bear witness to the former use of the quarry, 2022. Photo: Lukas Severin Damm.

©Buchenwald Memorial

Only simple tools were provided for breaking stone. The difficulty of the work and the lack of care led to rapid physical deterioration. Relentless abuse at the hands of the SS work detail officers and overseers were part of everyday routine. Most inmates were forced to work in the quarry for a certain amount of time upon their arrival at Buchenwald. The so-called "punishment battalion" worked here permanently.

Numerous murders and executions also took place at the quarry. Prominent politicians, such as Austrian Justice Minister Robert Winterstein, and respected inmate representatives, such as senior block leader Rudolf Arndt, were shot by SS guards. A brief notation in their files simply states: "Shot while trying to escape." On November 9, 1939, a firing squad executed a group of 21 Jews, ostensibly in retaliation for the attack on Hitler at the Bürgerbräukeller in Munich.

After 1990 the vegetation that had covered the site over time was cut back. The extent of the quarry is once again visible.