Detail of the wooden wall and window of an original Buchenwald camp barrack

A detail of the exterior wall of one of the few original barracks remaining at Buchenwald. The dark wooden planks, worn by time and weather, silently tell the story of those forced to live behind these walls. The window with its simple white frame reflects the blue sky and trees, an image of freedom that prisoners could only dream of. Buchenwald's barracks, built to house 400 people, held up to 2,000 during peak overcrowding, in disastrous hygienic conditions that favored epidemics of typhus and dysentery.

Buchenwald, barrack, window, wood, prisoners, concentration camp, detail