A focal point of our collections are bequests and memorabilia from people who suffered and died in Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora.
Many benefactors from throughout the world generously have made and are still making permanent gifts to our collection.
We are grateful for offers of new gifts as a means of expanding our knowledge about the fates of individuals and as a way of enhancing future exhibitions and research projects.
We are particularly interested in photographs, documents, drawings, textiles, and other three-dimensional objects of everyday use thematically related to the contexts of our two memorial sites.
Buchenwald Memorial
At the Buchenwald Memorial we collect items related to the themes of the Buchenwald Concentration Camp / National Socialism, the Soviet Special Camp No. 2 / the post-war period, the National Buchenwald Memorial / anti-fascism in the GDR and the Buchenwald Memorial in reunified Germany.
The memorial has a collection of some 10,000 historical photographs, the result of over thirty years of collecting activity. In addition, we have the partial archives of individual photographers as well as bequests made by camp survivors.
The core of our art collection is formed by artistic works produced by concentration camp survivors since the 1950s, which were passed on to the memorial. A systematic approach to this collection was first developed in the 1970s. Thematic emphases are artworks from concentration camps, works by former inmates, works for the memorials, and works by contemporary artists which deal with National Socialism's breach of civilization.
Bequests, personal accounts, and correspondence produced by former inmates form the basis of our archival collections.
KZ-Gedenkstätte Mittelbau-Dora:
The museum collection is divided into four groups: Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp, Forced Labour under National Socialism and in the Armaments Industry (especially in the Mittelwerk) (1943-1945); DP Camp Dora and Post-War Period (1945-1947); Dora-Mittelbau Memorial (1947-1989); History of the Memorial after 1989.
The archival collection of the Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp Memorial contains letters, postcards, memorial reports and other documents handed over by concentration camp survivors or their relatives for permanent safekeeping.
