The Psychiatric Station in the Soviet Special Camp at Buchenwald

Between August 1945 and February 1950, the Nazi concentration camp of Buchenwald was turned into the Soviet Special Camp Number 2 by the Soviet secret service to house individuals perceived as opponents of the Soviet system. We have investigated the system of health care for psychiatric patients in this camp. We have consulted and reviewed the archives of Buchenwald concentration camp (Arkiv der Gedenkstatte Buchenwald). Archival documents regarding the Soviet period have been partially declassified recently. During its five years of operation, 28 455 prisoners were held. In Buchenwald, psychiatric patients were held in the Psychiatric Station (barrack VIIc), guarded by a neuropsychiatrist and a nurse. The number of inmates who passed through this station is unknown, however, at one point there were more than 60. The medical system run in Gulags for decades was already exported to camps created in German territory after the end of the war. The internment of dissidents in psychiatric centers was a common practice of the Soviet authorities.