Berlin, September 16 (RHC)-- In Germany, the barracks for Nazi SS officers at a concentration camp during World War II has now become the home of refugees who fled to Europe for better lives.

The plans to house refugees in the notorious Nazi death camp were first announced in January. At the time, the town's authorities said that they were facing the problem of housing some 200 asylum seekers while there were no funds to purchase temporary structures to place them. A council spokeswoman called the solution to move the refugees into the former camp “a practical one."

From July 1937 to April 1945, some 250,000 prisoners were kept in the Nazi concentration camp Buchenwald in Germany. The camp was one of the largest of its kind and was surrounded by sentries, watchtowers and electrified fences. Apart from being forced to carry out crippling manual labor, the inmates were subjected to gruesome medical experiments. Some 56,000 male prisoners are thought to have died in the camp during World War II.

The refugees have been staying at the barracks, equipped with basic cooking facilities and bunk beds, for the past several months and are paid 135 Euros a month by the German government to buy food and general necessities until their asylum seeker status applications is returned to them.