After the GDR Politburo ordered the demolition of nearly the entire Buchenwald concentration camp in 1950, only a few structures remained intact. The crematorium became part of a monumental memorial dedicated to anti-fascist resistance. Half a million people visited the memorial when it opened in 1958. Decades later, in 1995, the first of several permanent exhibitions opened at the memorial, describing the lives and deaths of the 250,000 men and women imprisoned in the camp.
