LIBERATION OF BUCHENWALD

Chapter 12

in plain view for all of the prisoners standing in Roll Call Square to see it at all times.

The reports of torture and death get much worse. Buchenwald even had its own building for stripping and tanning human skin. Prisoners would report that there were always stacks of human skin, both with and without camp tattoos. The prisoners reported that in Block 2 there was always a traffic of soldiers and it was called the “Pathology Block”. Prisoners reported always seeing soldiers leaving Block 2 carrying piles of human skin. Prisoners reported that people were always getting skinned and the skin was then tanned and turned into book covers, gloves, hand bags, wall decorations, and even lamp shades. All of which were found when the Americans liberated Buchenwald. Prisoners who worked near this location reported that all of the things made were “gifts” ordered by German high command.

As Soviet forces swept through Poland, the Germans evacuated thousands of concentration camp prisoners from western Poland. After long, brutal marches, more than 10,000 weak and exhausted prisoners