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Buchenwald concentration camp (German: ''Konzentrationslager (KZ) Buchenwald'', ; literally, in English: ''beech forest'') was a German Nazi concentration camp established on the ''Ettersberg'' (Etter Mountain) near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937, one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps on German soil, following Dachau's opening just over four years earlier. Prisoners from all over Europe and the Soviet Union—Jews, Poles and other Slavs, the mentally ill and physically-disabled from birth defects, religious and political prisoners, Roma and Sinti, Freemasons, Jehovah's Witnesses (then called Bible Students), criminals, homosexuals, and prisoners of war—worked primarily as forced labor in local armaments factories.〔(The History of Buchenwald Memorial ).〕 From 1945 to 1950, the camp was used by the Soviet occupation authorities as an internment camp, known as NKVD special camp number 2. Today the remains of Buchenwald serve as a memorial and permanent exhibition and museum.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url= http://www.buchenwald.de/english/index.php?p=stiftungszweck )〕 ==History== In 1937, the Nazis constructed Buchenwald concentration camp, near Weimar, Germany. Embedded in the camp's main entrance gate is the slogan Jedem das Seine (literally "to each his own", but figuratively "everyone gets what he deserves”). The camp was operational until its liberation in 1945. Between 1945 and 1950, it was used by the Soviet Union as an NKVD special camp for Germans. On January 6, 1950, the Soviets handed over Buchenwald to the East German Ministry of Internal Affairs. The camp was to be named ''K. L. Ettersberg'', but this was changed to ''Buchenwald'' ("beech forest"), since ''Ettersberg'' carried too many associations with Goethe, who strolled through the woods (his lover Charlotte von Stein lived there) and supposedly wrote his "Wanderer's Nightsong", or, alternatively, the Walpurgisnacht passages of his ''Faust'' under the oak tree which remained in the center of the camp after the forest was cleared for its construction: this tree is the famous Goethe Oak. Quickly the fate of the oak became associated with the fate of Germany: if the one was to fall, so was the other. Between April 1938 and April 1945, some 238,380 people of various nationalities including 350 Western Allied prisoners of war (POW)s were incarcerated in Buchenwald. One estimate places the number of deaths at 56,000. During an American bombing raid on August 24, 1944 that was directed at a nearby armaments factory, several bombs, including incendiaries, also fell on the camp, resulting in heavy casualties amongst the prisoners〔The Buchenwald Report by David A Hackett Language: English ISBN 0-8133-3363-6 ISBN 978-0813333632〕 (2,000 prisoners wounded & 388 killed by the raid). Today the remains of the camp serve as a memorial and permanent exhibition and museum administered by the Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation, which also oversees the camp's memorial at Mittelbau-Dora.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Buchenwald concentration camp」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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