ch left for Majdanek, his successor, Hermann Pister, remained the commander until liberation. In 1942, Buchenwald became a forced labor camp for war weaponry production. This brought in many more "workers". On October 17, 1942 all Jewish prisoners except 200 building masons were transferred to Auschwitz. Until 1943, prisoners were mostly Germans. Due to the changing circumstances of the war, men of all nations were imprisioned; politicals, communists, and Jews from these varied countries outnumbered criminals. Even though many people from many nations were imprisioned in Buchenwald, the Nazis segregated the "lows", which were the Jews and Homosexuals.On October 6, 1944 the number of prisoners reached a peak of 89,143. This increase of numbers diminished the food supplies, further deteriorated the unhygienic conditions, which in turn increased the death rate. From the winter of 1944 until after January 1945, the camps in the east were evacuated due to the approach of the Soviet Army and thousands of prisoners weretransferred to Buchenwald. Many of these died in great numbers in Buchenwald. At the beginning of April 1944, the SS evacuated several thousand Jews. On January 1945, tens of thousands of ex-Auschwitz inmates were sent to Buchenwald. Between May 1944 and March 1945, 20,000 Jews were interned in Buchenwald.A survivor said that the men in Buchenwald "gradually realized that obedience meant death. The only hope of survival lay in resistance." In Buchenwald, there was a firmly established underground where, by the end of the war, the political prisoners ran internal camp affairs completely. The underground made contact with the Allies, resulting in a bombing raid which severely damaged SS sectors of the camp. It was on this raid on August 24, 1944 that the underground began to arm itself. This was the foundation of the take-over of Buchenwald. The mass evacuation planned for April 5, 1945 was foiled. The armed underground movement s...
