Editing Buchenwald concentration camp (section)

==Allied POWs==
{{main|Allied airmen at Buchenwald concentration camp}}

Although it was highly unusual for German authorities to send [[Allies of World War II|Western Allied]] POWs to concentration camps, Buchenwald held a group of [[KLB Club|168 aviators]] for two months.<ref>[http://www.vac-acc.gc.ca/remembers/sub.cfm?source=history/secondwar/fact_sheets/pow Veterans Affairs Canada, 2006: "Prisoners of War in the Second World War"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090625165353/http://www.vac-acc.gc.ca/remembers/sub.cfm?source=history/secondwar/fact_sheets/pow |date=25 June 2009 }} Accessed 16 May 2007.</ref> These men were from the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Jamaica. They all arrived at Buchenwald on 20 August 1944.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20140223114725/http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=1575 National Museum of the USAF: "Allied Victims of the Holocaust"] Accessed 9 July 2017.</ref><ref name="buchenwaldflyboy.wordpress.com">{{cite web|url=http://buchenwaldflyboy.wordpress.com |title=Eyewitness accounts of Art Kinnis, president of KLB (Konzentrationslager Buchenwald), and 2nd Lt. Joseph Moser, one of the surviving pilots|website=www.buchenwaldflyboy.wordpress.com}}</ref>

All these airmen were in aircraft that had crashed in [[German occupation of France during World War II|occupied France]]. Two explanations are given for them being sent to a concentration camp: first, that they had managed to make contact with the [[French Resistance]], some were disguised as civilians, and they were carrying false papers when caught; they were therefore categorized by the Germans as [[espionage|spies]], which meant their rights under the [[Geneva Conventions|Geneva Convention]] were not respected. The second explanation is that they had been categorised as ''[[Terror bombing|Terrorflieger]]'' ("terror aviators"). The aviators were initially held in [[Gestapo]] prisons and headquarters in France. In April or August 1944, they and other Gestapo prisoners were packed into [[covered goods wagon]]s  and sent to Buchenwald. The journey took five days, during which they received very little food or water.<ref>From ''The Lucky Ones: Allied Airmen and Buchenwald'' (1994 film, directed by Michael Allder), cited by [http://www.vac-acc.gc.ca/remembers/sub.cfm?source=history/secondwar/fact_sheets/pow Veterans Affairs Canada, 2006: "Prisoners of War in the Second World War"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090625165353/http://www.vac-acc.gc.ca/remembers/sub.cfm?source=history/secondwar/fact_sheets/pow |date=25 June 2009 }} Accessed 16 May 2007.</ref>