A Nazi camp and its history

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From the archive: On this day in 1945, the Guardian reported on the death toll of the Buchenwald concentration camp.

A Nazi camp and its history

Wednesday April 18, 1945
The Guardian

Records kept by the SS Oberführer in charge show the deaths at the Buchenwald concentration camp near Weimar numbered 6,477 in January, 5,614 in February, 5,479 in March, and 915 in April. The April toll was only up to the 10th of the month. The next day the American Third Army overran the area and brought release to the 21,000 inmates at this resort of starvation, torture, hangings and shootings.

Mostly the inmates were pitiful wrecks. At one time up to 80,000 people from a score of nations were here made to work long hours on the production of bombs.

When the sound of gunfire from the approaching Americans was heard, thousands of the inmates were marched off by 600 SS Guards to an unknown destination. Then the camp underground acted, overpowered the remaining guards, locked them up in small cells, and ran the camp themselves till the Americans arrived.

There were mass exterminations of 12,500 Jews in May and June, 1938. After the Nazi occupation of Austria a great influx of political prisoners and Jews took place.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/fromthearchive/story/0,,1755561,00.html