To the north of Weimar rises the 478-meter-high Ettersberg, notorious as the place where the Nazis established the Buchenwald concentration camp in 1937 and where an estimated 56,000 people died. 

Now a memorial site, Memorial Buchenwald (Gedenkstätte Buchenwald) is a sobering reminder of the horrors of fascism. The memorial, which includes the Grove of Honor and a bell-tower, was laid out on the southern slope of the hill at the site of mass graves.

Also available to view are a number of the camp's surviving buildings, including the gatehouse, detention cells, and crematorium.