All the recent analyses are the work of forensic biologist Mark Benecke, and they involve visual inspection, microscopic examination, and DNA testing. I was going to quote Rudolf's summary here, but instead I will give my own summary with more detail. These are all the artifacts of concern, with links to timestamps from his presentation on Youtube and additional links to the Buchenwald Memorial website:
- The segmented lampshade, which is seen on Koch's desk in a photo from his photo album, was made of "raw" and "flattened" human skin. 15:15. Memorial.
- The Buchenwald Museum's shrunken head was actually made of goat skin and hair. 06:34.
- The Buchenwald Museum's heart in a jar with a bullet wound is human, although no DNA was found. 12:56. Memorial.
- The Buchenwald Museum's miniature lampshade, which in 1992 was determined not to be made of human skin, actually was made of human skin. 10:28. Memorial.
- The New Orleans lampshade, previously identified as being made of Jewish skin, was made of calf hide. 09:11.
- A fourth lampshade sent in by a journalist was made of human skin. 16:25.
- A pocketknife case from a British museum which is said to have come from Germany in 1945 was made of human skin. 13:59. Memorial.
- The two shrunken heads from the Buchenwald atrocity table, one of which was presented at the IMT, have not been tested.
- The many skin samples and other artifacts from that table are not discussed in the video, but three samples are mentioned on the Buchenwald website here.
Separate from this, there is also the story of a donated photo album that the Auschwitz Museum believes was made of human skin at Buchenwald. They posted
this article in 2020. The method there was spectrophotometry.
There is also
this study of four additional shrunken heads that some believed had origins at Buchenwald. Using DNA evidence, the author concludes that one has Southeastern European ancestry and the other three are Amerindian.
I also want to point out that the lampshade Benecke tested and photographed, item 4 in the list above, appears visually different than the one in this older photo. The slope of the lampshade appears steeper, and the material more resembles leather. For that matter the shrunken head looks different too, in one photo, but maybe that's a recreation? I trust I am simply wrong about this, but the visual difference is too striking to let go unremarked upon.

- Buchenwald's miniature lampshade.jpg (141.43 KiB) Viewed 63 times