Buchenwald Crematorium

Crematorium with pathology lab in the annex

The photograph above shows the crematorium and the pathology annex, which houses several exhibits. The crematorium is located to the right of the gate house as you enter the camp. In the foreground, you can see rocks which have been arranged to show where the barracks formerly stood. Unlike Dachau and Sachsenhausen, where the crematorium was outside the camp fence and hidden from the prisoner's view by trees or a wall, all of the Buchenwald inmates could see this building, which was at the top of a slope. The pathology lab was located in an annex built onto the crematorium; this was where autopsies were done to determine the cause of death.

View of crematorium from inside the fenced courtyard

Chimney of the crematorium at Buchenwald

The crematorium, which is one of the few buildings still standing in the Buchenwald camp, was built by the SS in 1942. It replaced a smaller crematorium which had been built between the end of 1939 and the beginning of 1940 and had started operation in the middle of 1940. Prior to that, bodies were taken to the municipal Krematory in Weimar and other nearby towns. The corpses were temporarily stored in a shed near the east gate in the vicinity of the camp Zoo. The Buchenwald crematorium was equipped with brick ovens made by the Topf & Sons company in nearby Erfurt. This company also made the ovens which were installed in Auschwitz-Birkenau in June 1943.

The picture below shows the east gate of the camp with the crematorium in the background. A wooden fence, stained a dark brown, surrounds the courtyard where executions were sometimes carried out.

East gate with crematorium in the background

Cremation Ovens

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