Obj. ID: 53966
Memorials  Peace Monument in Buchenwald, Germany, 1995

A week after their liberation, the surviving inmates gathered at roll call square on April 19, 1945, to honor the memory of their deceased comrades and to thank the Allied troops. At the end of the memorial service, they pledged the "Oath of Buchenwald," and a wooden memorial obelisk was erected on the site.

Today, at the location is a memorial for all the dead of the Buchenwald Concentration Camp that was consecrated on the 50th anniversary of the camp's liberation in 1995. The artists called it the "memorial as a memory of a memory."

Historian James Young writes:

"Invited by Volkhard Knigge, the director of the Buchenwald Museum, shortly after its postreunification revisions to memorialize the first monument to liberation erected by the camp's former inmates in April 1945, Hoheisel proposed not a resurrection of the original monument but a »living« alternative. In collaboration with an architect, Andreas Knitz, the artist designed a steel-slab with the names of fifty-one national groups victimized here and engraved with the initials K.L.B., standing for Konzentrationslager Buchenwald, words that had been marked on the prisoners' original wooden memorial obelisk. And since that obelisk had been constructed out of pieces of barracks torn down by former inmates - that is, given new life by the prisoners' own hands – Hoheisel built into his memorial steel-slab a radiant heating system set at a constant 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, to suggest the body heat of those whose memory it would now enshrine. Visitors almost always kneel to touch the slab, something they would not do if it were cold stone, and are touched in turn by the human warmth embodied there. Dedicated in April 1995, on the fiftieth anniversary of the prisoners' memorial [which lasted only two months], this warm memorial reminds visitors of the memory of actual victims that has preceded their own, subsequent memory of this time. In winter, with snow covering the rest of the ground, this slab is always clear, an all-season marker for the site of the original attempt to commemorate the crimes of Buchenwald." (quoted on http://www.knitz.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=26&Itemid=143)
The International Committee Buchenwald-Dora and Commandos (IBDC) holds a memorial at this place every year in April for all the dead of the camp. U.S. President Barack Obama, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Buchenwald survivor Elie Wiesel visited the memorial on June 5, 2009, and laid their hands on the warm metal, and placed flowers. Their remarks on the occasion are at http://www.knitz.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=26&Itemid=143)

From: https://www.buchenwald.de/en/geschichte/historischer-ort/konzentrationslager/appellplatz:

"Situated between the camp gate and the barracks, the 20,000-square-metre roll call area was the central square of the camp. The machine guns mounted on the watchtowers ensured that it was guarded; loudspeakers drenched it in sound; and flood lights bathed it in a glaring light in the early morning and evening hours. Thousands of inmates had to line up here day after day.
Travertine stones set into the ground served as markers for the mustering of the inmates. They bear witness to the routine of the line-up: marching in, lining up, forming up in blocks, tearing their hats from their heads, standing endlessly, or singing for hours. Refusal to take part in the drill was fatal."
Roll call, which happened twice a day, was simply an opportunity for the SS to terrorize inmates. Some roll calls lasted up to 72 hours and lead to multiple deaths. Roll call square is also where the SS whipped inmates on the so-called "beating rack." Gallows were also erected here, where inmates were hung in front of all their companions."