Germany is housing asylum seekers in a former Nazi concentration camp, the Mail Online reported Friday.

According to the report, 21 men reside in a building once used as the barracks of the Buchenwald concentration camp. The asylum seekers are staying there while waiting to receive refugee status. Some have been living there for several months, while others are more recent arrivals.

The building is reportedly equipped with basic cooking facilities and bunk beds.

"It is an emergency solution, but it is unavoidable," the mayor of Berlin's Mitte district, Christian Hanke, was quoted as saying by the Mail Online. "There is a lot of room in the hangars."

The plan to house asylum seekers at the camp came under fire in January when it was first announced.

Around 250,000 prisoners were held at Buchenwald from its opening in July 1937 to its liberation in April 1945. An estimated 56,000 people were killed, including political prisoners, people dubbed "asocial" by the Nazis, Soviet prisoners of war, Sinti and Roma, and approximately 11,000 Jews.

The report emerged as Germany struggles to cope with a record-breaking influx of refugees. Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Friday that up to 40,000 migrants might arrive in Germany on Saturday and Sunday, twice as many as last weekend, when authorities in Bavaria had warned they were barely coping. Some 450,000 people have come to Germany seeking refuge from war, persecution and poverty since the start of the year.

AP and Reuters contributed to the report.