here hundreds died daily, there was a crematorium. Aside from the huge ovens, there were 48 hooks for hanging pairs of prisoners at a time. If they were not dead in the set five minutes, they would be clubbed to dead and then thrown into the incinerator. The bathrooms prisoners used were 20 feet long, 12 feet wide, 12 feet deep open pits with railings along the side to squat. The soldiers would throw people in the hole while they were doing their business. In October 1937 alone, ten people suffocated from excrement when thrown into a hole. These overflowing pits were emptied at night by prisoners with nothing but small pails. There were about 30 men working on the slippery ground and often as many as ten men fell in. Until the work was done and the pits were empty, the workers weren't allowed to remove the corpses. In December 1942, the camp received German criminals who had been handed over to the SS by the prison authorities. Most of them became the victims of pseudo-medical experiments performed in the camp hospital. In Buchenwald, the winter Appels, or roll calls can be considered a form of extermination. Some dropped dead, during roll call, from the freezing cold while others caught pneumonia and then died.With so many killings in Buchenwald it might be asked why is it not considered a death camp ? One suggested response is that killings constantly went on in a quick orderly fashion at the camps officially known as "death camps", with victims not knowing what hit them. At Buchenwald, though, realizing that death itself is not necessarily terrifying, but it is years of daily torture which is most frightening and very effective. Therefore, Buchenwald is called the "camp of the slow death." The outbreak of World War II brought a new group of prisoners, mostly stateless people from Poland. More and more prisoners arrived as Hitler's armies conquered more territory. Most Soviet POW's (prisoners of war) were killed upon arrival. After Ko...
