Buchenwald was liberated by the US 3rd Army on 11 April 1945.
In the preceding days, the SS had attempted to 'evacuate' the camp and send as many prisoners as possible on so-called 'Death Marches', thus following through with the overall policy of the Nazi state in its dying months to ensure the Allies found no people in the concentration and extermination camps.
Thanks to the impotence of the SS by April 1945 and resistance from the prisoners (who knew they stood a better chance of survival by remaining in the camp to await liberation than by setting out on foot on an aimless journey through a country on the verge of arguably the most 'total' of defeats the world had ever seen) there were 21,000 prisoners still in the camp when the American army arrived.
That morning, the SS had been ordered out of the camp in an attempt to escape the advancing Allies, essentially leaving Buchenwald in the hands of the remaining prisoners. At 3.15pm, some of these prisoners stormed the main gate and watchtower, flew a white flag and announced 'Kamaraden, wir sind frei!' ('Comrades, we are free!') over the loudspeaker.
Such were the conditions in the camp that, despite the best efforts of the US army doctors, approximately one quarter of these 21,000 prisoners died of malnutrition and disease in the initial weeks following liberation.
The liberation of the camp and the suffering endured by those who were imprisoned and died there is commemorated at the site each year - this year for the 67th time.
On Wednesday the 11th, the actual anniversary, there was a fairly low-key 'memorial tour' led by the chief historian and other employees of the site, where we paused for a minute's silence at each of the memorials to the different groups of prisoners.
The more official five-day programme of events then began on Friday morning, with the arrival of the former prisoners and their family members from all over the world.
I had been involved here and there in the preparations since November, helping to translate invitations and programmes into English, etc, but for the actual events I worked to accompany the English-speaking guests along with some colleagues.
In the English-speaking group there were 4 survivors accompanied by family members. Two of them come originally from Hungary and moved to Australia and America respectively after the war and one comes originally from Poland, and moved to England after the war. The fourth comes from California and was in Buchenwald as a prisoner of war.
We left Weimar at 4am on Friday to go to Frankfurt airport to collect some of the guests and bring them back to Weimar, where they were staying in a hotel in the city. After a few hours of running around the airport, we eventually managed to meet everyone and were back to Weimar that afternoon. Once everyone was checked in, the guests were left to relax and try to get over their jet-lag before the busy few days they had ahead of them.
I spent some time on Saturday morning in the archives with one of the survivors, as he looked through the records about himself and his father, who was imprisoned in Buchenwald at the same time as him. It was fascinating but also very sad to be there as he also looked at a list of the other people from his village who were also deported to Buchenwald and other concentration camps.
Even more moving was the visit we made later to the site of the former quarry, where prisoners worked as slave labourers in appalling conditions. We were there for about an hour, just listening to two of the survivors telling us their stories - from the time of their arrest to their liberation. I can't imagine the amount of courage that must be needed to be able to come back to a place like this, even after such a long time, that inflicted such suffering on them.
On Sunday the main commemoration ceremony for the victims took place on the former 'roll-call square', where the prisoners had to stand every morning and evening for roll-call. The ceremony itself lasted about an hour and included speeches from representatives of the survivors in several different languages and the laying of wreaths by many different groups.
There was some controversy in the days afterwards as some spectators at the ceremony had been flying the old East German flag. As I've mentioned before in this blog, the ruling SED party in the DDR completely hi-jacked the Buchenwald site as a way to legitimise its own undemocratic rule, and while it of course cannot be compared to the 'Third Reich' in terms of ideology or brutality, that state was still a dictatorship so it's quite disappointing (to put it mildly) to see people still using the suffering of hundreds of thousands of innocent victims for their own completely unrelated political ends today.
Two film screenings took place over the few days too. One was a film about a Czech prisoner who worked to protect the lives of hundreds of young boys in Buchenwald, most of whom survived their time in the camp, and the on-going campaign to have him included as a 'Righteous Among the Nations' at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. Two of those boys he protected were present and spoke about their experiences. The second film told the story of a group of Western Allied pilots who were brought to Buchenwald after crash-landing in occupied France in 1944. One of the survivors I was accompanying, the man from California, was in that group and spoke to the audience afterwards, and had even brought with him a spoon that a prisoner from Poland had made for him at Buchenwald.
Other survivors also gave talks to school students and the public, telling people their stories and answering questions about their experiences and some others made individual visits to former sub-camps of Buchenwald in villages and towns in the area.
The whole period felt like so much more than just a week at work and it was an absolutely fascinating and moving experience to be able to spend some time with the survivors and their families and get to know them on a more personal level. It was so sad to hear their stories, but also impressive to consider how many of them succeeded in re-building their lives from nothing, often at a very young age and in new countries to which they arrived alone without a word of the language.
In the preceding days, the SS had attempted to 'evacuate' the camp and send as many prisoners as possible on so-called 'Death Marches', thus following through with the overall policy of the Nazi state in its dying months to ensure the Allies found no people in the concentration and extermination camps.
Thanks to the impotence of the SS by April 1945 and resistance from the prisoners (who knew they stood a better chance of survival by remaining in the camp to await liberation than by setting out on foot on an aimless journey through a country on the verge of arguably the most 'total' of defeats the world had ever seen) there were 21,000 prisoners still in the camp when the American army arrived.
That morning, the SS had been ordered out of the camp in an attempt to escape the advancing Allies, essentially leaving Buchenwald in the hands of the remaining prisoners. At 3.15pm, some of these prisoners stormed the main gate and watchtower, flew a white flag and announced 'Kamaraden, wir sind frei!' ('Comrades, we are free!') over the loudspeaker.
Such were the conditions in the camp that, despite the best efforts of the US army doctors, approximately one quarter of these 21,000 prisoners died of malnutrition and disease in the initial weeks following liberation.
The liberation of the camp and the suffering endured by those who were imprisoned and died there is commemorated at the site each year - this year for the 67th time.
On Wednesday the 11th, the actual anniversary, there was a fairly low-key 'memorial tour' led by the chief historian and other employees of the site, where we paused for a minute's silence at each of the memorials to the different groups of prisoners.
The more official five-day programme of events then began on Friday morning, with the arrival of the former prisoners and their family members from all over the world.
I had been involved here and there in the preparations since November, helping to translate invitations and programmes into English, etc, but for the actual events I worked to accompany the English-speaking guests along with some colleagues.
In the English-speaking group there were 4 survivors accompanied by family members. Two of them come originally from Hungary and moved to Australia and America respectively after the war and one comes originally from Poland, and moved to England after the war. The fourth comes from California and was in Buchenwald as a prisoner of war.
We left Weimar at 4am on Friday to go to Frankfurt airport to collect some of the guests and bring them back to Weimar, where they were staying in a hotel in the city. After a few hours of running around the airport, we eventually managed to meet everyone and were back to Weimar that afternoon. Once everyone was checked in, the guests were left to relax and try to get over their jet-lag before the busy few days they had ahead of them.
I spent some time on Saturday morning in the archives with one of the survivors, as he looked through the records about himself and his father, who was imprisoned in Buchenwald at the same time as him. It was fascinating but also very sad to be there as he also looked at a list of the other people from his village who were also deported to Buchenwald and other concentration camps.
Even more moving was the visit we made later to the site of the former quarry, where prisoners worked as slave labourers in appalling conditions. We were there for about an hour, just listening to two of the survivors telling us their stories - from the time of their arrest to their liberation. I can't imagine the amount of courage that must be needed to be able to come back to a place like this, even after such a long time, that inflicted such suffering on them.
On Sunday the main commemoration ceremony for the victims took place on the former 'roll-call square', where the prisoners had to stand every morning and evening for roll-call. The ceremony itself lasted about an hour and included speeches from representatives of the survivors in several different languages and the laying of wreaths by many different groups.
There was some controversy in the days afterwards as some spectators at the ceremony had been flying the old East German flag. As I've mentioned before in this blog, the ruling SED party in the DDR completely hi-jacked the Buchenwald site as a way to legitimise its own undemocratic rule, and while it of course cannot be compared to the 'Third Reich' in terms of ideology or brutality, that state was still a dictatorship so it's quite disappointing (to put it mildly) to see people still using the suffering of hundreds of thousands of innocent victims for their own completely unrelated political ends today.
Two film screenings took place over the few days too. One was a film about a Czech prisoner who worked to protect the lives of hundreds of young boys in Buchenwald, most of whom survived their time in the camp, and the on-going campaign to have him included as a 'Righteous Among the Nations' at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. Two of those boys he protected were present and spoke about their experiences. The second film told the story of a group of Western Allied pilots who were brought to Buchenwald after crash-landing in occupied France in 1944. One of the survivors I was accompanying, the man from California, was in that group and spoke to the audience afterwards, and had even brought with him a spoon that a prisoner from Poland had made for him at Buchenwald.
Other survivors also gave talks to school students and the public, telling people their stories and answering questions about their experiences and some others made individual visits to former sub-camps of Buchenwald in villages and towns in the area.
The whole period felt like so much more than just a week at work and it was an absolutely fascinating and moving experience to be able to spend some time with the survivors and their families and get to know them on a more personal level. It was so sad to hear their stories, but also impressive to consider how many of them succeeded in re-building their lives from nothing, often at a very young age and in new countries to which they arrived alone without a word of the language.
