Buchenwald: The Statistics of Buchenwald

The Dead of Buchenwald

Based on Nazi records and other evidence collected after liberation of the camp, the number of those who died or were murdered under the immediate influence of Buchenwald is no fewer than 55,000 victims. This number must be regarded as the minimum number of deaths brought about by Nazi barbarism in Buchenwald. Historian Leni Yahil estimates the actual number of deaths in Buchenwald at 70,000, or 30% of the total of all prisoners admitted. She includes in this number the figures given below, plus the number of prisoners evacuated in the week before liberation in April 1945.

Not included in these numbers are the many hundreds who froze or starved to death on transports to and from Buchenwald. Not Included in these numbers are the numbers of dead from transports to liquidation camps that did not leave Buchenwald solely as liquidation transports. That, too, would amount to several hundred victims.

TOTAL KILLED IN CAMP (Oct 1, 1937 - April 10, 1945):	34,566
TOTAL RUSSIAN POWs MURDERED:	7,200
TOTAL EXECUTIONS:	1,100
TOTAL SENT ON LIQUIDATION TRANSPORTS:*	11,060
TOTAL BUCHENWALD DEATH TOLL:	53,926

Admissions and Deaths in Buchenwald

The following table shows the total number of all prisoners who came to Buchenwald as new admissions.
Death tolls contain only those registered in the hospital as deaths; not included are the numbers of murdered Russian prisoners of war, executed prisoners and those prisoners sent on death transports. Also missing is the number of victims who died or were beaten to death on the way to and from Weimar during transports.

Nations Represented in Buchenwald

Germans	Austrians	French
Spanish	Italians	Swiss
Czechs	Yugoslavs	Croats
Albanians	Greeks	Bulgarians
Romanians	Poles	Russians
Belgians	Dutch	Luxemburgers
Latvians	Lithuanians	Estonians
Danes	Norwegians	English
Americans	Mexicans	Brazilians
Chinese	Egyptians	Canadians
Hungarians	Ukrainians	Various African Nations

*Liquidation Transports
Gas transport to Sonneberg, July 1940	100
Gas transport of Jews to Bernburg, [February] 1942	500
Gas transport of Jews to Bernburg, [March] 1942	200
Transport of Dutch Jews to Mauthausen, 1941	341
Various transports to Auschwitz in the year 1943	1,180
Transport of children to Auschwitz, 1943	200
Transport of Jews to Auschwitz, 1944	2,101
Deaths in Dora, disguised as liquidation transport to Auschwitz	3,000
Transports to Bergen-Belsen, 1944	3,438
TOTAL DEATH TOLL	53,926

 

Sources: Hackett, David. (Translator) The Buchenwald Report. CO: Westview Press, 1997.
Leni Yahil, The Holocaust: The Fate of European Jewry, 1932-1945, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), p. 536