Important places at the time of Special Camp No. 2

The picture shows a map drawn by Hans Wagner showing the transport route for prisoners from Special Camp No. 2 who were deported to Karaganda.

Rail Station prisoner transports

The rail line constructed by concentration camp inmates in 1943 was not used regularly by the Soviet camp administration. It was used to bring inmates to Buchenwald from other special camps that were being shut down.

A plan of the preliminary zone of the special camp with a Cyrillic heading. At the bottom, the elongated, semicircular buildings of the former SS barracks can be seen, but only the scant half of them, resulting in approximately a quarter circle. Above are the functional buildings of the former commandant's office, the political department and the depot. The drawing still ends at the top with the camp fence and the gate building. Most of the buildings are numbered.

Garrison Area administration and surveillance

The Soviet guard details of Special Camp No. 2 included 250 men, and they only used a portion of the former SS site.

A flat, one-story building with a plain facade on the edge of the street.

Soviet Administrative Barrack Newly built

The administrative barrack were built between 1948 and 1950 as a "staff building." The staff included the people commissioned with running the special camp.

View of the gate of Special Camp No. 2. the gate of the former Buchenwald concentration camp is almost unchanged, but the barred iron gate is boarded up. the SS lettering: "To each his own" is thus obscured."

Gate Building "Sluice" to the camp

The gate building was the only entry and exit point. A large portion of the prison camp could be monitored from its guard platform.

The drawing shows a section of the fence at the front left, which consists of two rows of barbed wire. Behind the fence, running roughly diagonally across the picture plane, is a multiple curved dashed line inscribed at both ends with the number 385. In the upper right, a wavy line indicates an area where small symbols suggest trees or forest. A Cyrillic lettering is written in it. At the upper edge of the image, straight lines suggest that the original shows further motifs outside the image section.

Fence / Watchtowers Isolation from the outside world

After several inmates managed to escape in 1946, the security installations, which included an electric fence, trip wires, and watchtowers, were enhanced multiple times.

You can see the front and back of a handwritten warehouse ID card. He has the number 15. The card entitles a Karl Osner to visit all parts of the camp due to his employment in the technical department.

Internal Camp Administration "Staff" and "Camp Protection"

To ensure the smooth operation of the camp's daily routine, the Soviet administrators established an internal organizational structure among the German inmates.

The former roll call area can be seen as a large open area in front of the camp gate, which can be seen in the background. In the foreground of the picture, the outlines of the former barracks of the camp are made visible on the ground by fields of cinder stones, which stand out darkly against the rest of the gravel.

Roll Call Square until 1946

Behind the gate building and the "sluice" was roll call square. Here a general roll call of all camp inmates was held mornings and evenings until 1946.

Drawing of a stone barrack on squared paper. At the top right, the drawing is labeled "Baracke 28". At the top left is written "Speziallager Buchenwald 1948". The schematic drawing shows a two-winged two-story building, with a two-sided exterior stairway in the center. The windows are small, with grilles indicated in front.

Inmate Housing Wooden and stone barracks

Inmates were housed in approximately 50 barracks, which had belonged to the former main camp of Buchenwald Concentration Camp.

Drawing of the isolator. A separately fenced zone with barracks. The fence is high and opaque. Two small guard houses stand at two adjacent entrances. Directly behind the fence the roofs of flat barracks, behind them three larger multi-storey houses. Under the drawing is the writing: "K.Z. Buchenwald 1945 - The Isolator - 2nd Zone, Barracks 19 and 20".

Isolator Two separate wooden barracks

For an inmate, being sent to the isolator meant being subjected to even harsher confinement—a practice assumed from the Soviet camp system.

Exterior view of the "bunker" in the annex of the crematorium. Seven small barred windows can be seen below the roof.

"Bunker" Instruction by the camp guard

In 1947 the Soviet administration erected a detention building with six individual cells next to the former concentration camp crematorium, which now remained unused.

A drawing of the two two-story barracks of the former concentration camp laboratory that were used as women's barracks in the special camp. To the left is a small house with a conspicuously large and tall chimney. The drawing is labeled below as follows: "The women's barracks 14 and 15, former laboratory. After demolition of the small building, a casket with gold and precious stones worth 2 million gold marks was found walled into the foundation."

Womens' Barracks Two stone barracks

Among the some 28,500 inmates of the Soviet Special Camp No. 2 there were approximately 1,000 women. They were held in women's barracks and were kept strictly separate from the men.

Wooden pendant from an in-house production of Goethe's Faust from 1946. The pendant is octagonal and shows a laughing and a sad mask next to each other.

Kultura Lectures, concerts and theatre

The term "Kultura" described the cultural activities of the inmates, which took place in a building by the same name in the western portion of the camp.

View from the northwest of stone barracks No. 13 and the chamber building behind it. On the far right is the former prisoner laundry.

Functional Area Magazine, storage cellar, laundry, canteen kitchen

Located to the east of the inmate barracks were various supply facilities. There was a depot, which stored items such as clothing and shoes.

A schematic drawing of the bakery in side view. The one-story building is built on a sloping foundation to compensate for the slight slope of the ground. There are two larger entrances on either side and a smaller door on the far left, with a 10 windows close together in between. Three chimneys are distributed over the central part.

Bakery Below the former crematorium

The bakery of the Buchenwald special camp was situated below the former crematorium, and it was built and put into operation shortly after the camp was established.

The picture shows the former workshop area after the dissolution of the special camp. In the center of the picture, a long, multi-story building can be seen. In the background a horse stable-like barrack. The complex is surrounded by thinned out rows of trees.

Workshops Garages, carpentry, forge

The majority of the workshops were located to the east of the camp, in an area that comprised the former armament factory belonging to the Deutsche Ausrüstungswerke.

The picture shows a complex with several greenhouses. A watchtower of the camp can be seen in the background.

Farm / Nursery For the Soviet camp administration

The farmyard at the lower, north-western end of the camp consisted of stalls for livestock and a field, where feed and tobacco were cultivated.

A schematic drawing of the lazaretto. It is a flat, long building with two floors. Due to the slightly sloping position, the windows on the right side are near the ground, while on the left side stairs lead up to the door. In the middle, stairs also lead up to the doors on the second floor. At the top, large windows are regularly arranged in pairs, while at the bottom, smaller windows are more widely spaced. Below the drawing there are two floor plans with lengths, as well as a list about the area with square meters and Cyrillic inscriptions.

Infirmary starvation diseases and tuberculosis

The infirmary was located in the lower, north-western portion of the camp. It consisted of eight buildings, which were separated from the rest of the camp by a barbed wire fence.

At intervals of several meters thin tree trunks. Between the trees at greater intervals thin wooden stakes with a red number at the top.

Burial Grounds Over 7,000 dead

Bodies were buried in the nearby surroundings of the camp in collective graves. Under the supervision of the Soviet camp commanders, a "burial commando" dug the graves, where multiple corpses were buried anonymously.