Buchenwald Concentration Camp - Soviet Special Camp 2

Soviet Special Camp 2

Further information: NKVD special camps

After liberation, between 1945 and 10 February 1950, the camp was administered by the Soviet Union and served as a Special Camp No. 2 of the NKVD. It was part of a "special camps" network operating since 1945, formally integrated into the Gulag in 1948. Another infamous "special camp" in Soviet occupied Germany was the former Nazi concentration camp Sachsenhausen (special camp No. 7).

Between August 1945 and the dissolution on 1 March 1950, 28,455 prisoners, including 1,000 women, were held by the Soviet Union at Buchenwald. A total of 7,113 people died in Special Camp Number 2, according to the Soviet records. They were buried in mass graves in the woods surrounding the camp. Their relatives did not receive any notification of their deaths. Prisoners comprised alleged opponents of Stalinism, and alleged members of the Nazi party or Nazi organization, others were imprisoned due to identity confusion and arbitrary arrests. The NKVD would not allow any contacts of prisoners to the outside world and did not attempt to determine the guilt of any individual prisoner.

On January 6, 1950, Soviet Minister of Internal Affairs Kruglov ordered all special camps, including Buchenwald, to be handed over to the East German Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Read more about this topic:  Buchenwald Concentration Camp

Famous quotes containing the words soviet, special and/or camp:

    “Nothing an interested foreigner may have to say about the Soviet Union today can compare with the scorn and fury of those who inhabit the ruin of a dream.”
    —Christopher Hope (b. 1944)

    “Jack: A politician, huh?
    Editor: Oh, county treasurer or something like that.
    Jack: What’s so special about him?
    Editor: They say he’s an honest man.”
    —Robert Rossen (1908–1966)

    “Usually the scenery about them is drear and savage enough; and the logger’s camp is as completely in the woods as a fungus at the foot of a pine in a swamp; no outlook but to the sky overhead; no more clearing than is made by cutting down the trees of which it is built, and those which are necessary for fuel.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)