I’ve been to Buchenwald, next to the very cultured city of Weimar, Germany.
It may not be technically designated a “death camp” but well over 55,000 people were purposely murdered there. It still reeks, spiritually...of death.
The furnaces are still there...looking well maintained enough to start up tomorrow. The dissection tables where gold teeth were pulled from the bodies are still there, as well as a cellar where 2000 prisoners were strangled to death by hanging them up on iron hooks.
Nearby are the large brightly colored Gestapo barracks. There are photos of the Gestapo guards hamming it up with their girlfriends on the weekends....and the wife of the camp commander (”the witch of Buchenwald”)had a penchant for decorative lampshades made with tattooed human skin (another reason never to get inked!).
The concentration camp of Buchenwald is truly an sad and chilling place—whatever you name it.
Ilse Koch’s nickname was “The Bitch of Buchenwald”. I believe she committed suicide after the war.
Her husband, Karl Koch, was shot by the SS, on orders from Himmler, after he was convicted by an SS court of stealing prisoner property that belonged to the state, and murdering prisoners without authorization, to cover up the crime.