Difference between revisions of "Category:Buchenwald (subject)"

Buchenwald

When the Allies liberate Buchenwald, they found 903 children. They were mostly adolescents; only around 30 of them were under 12.

Over four hundred of them were sent to an orphanage in Écouis, France where they were educated and cared for; see OSE Orphanage.

Literature

1958

Nackt unter Wölfen (Mitteldeutscher Verlag, 1958) is a semi-biographical novel, written by Holocaust survivor Bruno Apitz (1900-1979).

ET : Naked Among Wolves, translated by Edith Anderson (Berlin: Seven Seas Publishers, 1960).

The novel tells the story of prisoners in the Buchenwald concentration camp who risk their lives to hide a young Polish-Jewish boy. Apitz himself had been imprisoned in Buchenwald as a communist from 1937 to 1945. The boy, whose name in the novel is Stefan Cyliak, was revealed to be based on Stefan Jerzy Zweig after publication of the novel.

Translated into over 30 languages, winning worldwide recognition.

Adapted three times for a film--in 1960, 1963, and 2015.

1996

Saving Children: Diary of a Buchenwald Survivor and Rescuer (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1991) is a book by Holocaust survivor Jack Werber (1914-2006), with William B Helmreich.

"This is a remarkable story of survival, resistance, and courage. Jack Werber spent five and a half years in Buchenwald, one of Hitler's most notorious concentration camps. More than 56,000 inmates were put to death there and, out of 3,200 Polish prisoners who entered the camp together with Werber, only eleven were alive by war's end. Of those, he was the only Jew ... But Werber did more than survive; he helped others survive. In what is truly one of the most amazing stories to come out of the Holocaust, Jack Werber helped to save the lives of some 700 Jewish children who had arrived at Buchenwald in late 1944. Shortly before that Werber had learned that his entire family his wife, daughter, parents, and seven brothers and sisters had all been murdered by the Nazis. "There was no reason to go on," he had thought, but seeing the children transformed his outlook. He resolved to do everything in his power to prevent them from meeting his daughter's fate ... Werber is one of the very few Jews to belong to the camp underground. Together with several other Jews, he made saving children his special mission. At great personal risk, he arranged for them to be hidden in various barracks and to be given false working papers. Incredibly, he and his group actually started a school where the children studied Jewish history, music, and the Hebrew language. These activities gave the youngsters hope that they might survive and ultimately most of them did ... This story of resilience and courage has never been told before, despite the thousands of books that have appeared about the Holocaust. In Saving Children, we learn how it was achieved. Werber describes in fascinating detail what life in Buchenwald was like, providing much new information about the daily struggle for existence that characterized life in the camp. Above all, he shows how it was possible to remain human and to act with compassion, even in the face of enormous cruelty and barbarism."--Publisher description.

2007

The Buchenwald Child: Truth, Fiction, and Propaganda (Rochester, NY: Camden House, 1991) is a book by William John Niven.

"At the notorious Buchenwald concentration camp, communist prisoners organized resistance against the SS and even planned an uprising. They helped rescue a three-year-old Jewish boy, Stefan Jerzy Zweig, from certain death in the gas chambers. After the war, his story became a focus for the German Democratic Republic's celebration of its resistance to the Nazis. Now Bill Niven tells the true story of Stefan Zweig: what actually happened to him in Buchenwald, how he was protected, and at what price. He explores the (mis)representation of Zweig's rescue in East Germany and what this reveals about that country's understanding of its Nazi past. Finally he looks at the telling of the Zweig rescue story since German unification: a story told in the GDR to praise communists has become a story used to condemn them."--Publisher description.

William John Niven, Professor of Contemporary German History at the Nottingham Trent University, UK.

2011

Out of the Depths: The Story of a Child of Buchenwald Who Returned Home at Last (New York: Sterling Pub.: In conjunction with OU Press, 2011) is the memoir written by Holocaust survivor Yisrael Meir Lau (b.1937).

KEYWORDS: <Poland> <Buchenwald>

"Israel Meir Lau, one of the youngest survivors of Buchenwald, was just eight years old when the camp was liberated in 1945. Descended from a 1,000-year unbroken chain of rabbis, he grew up to become Chief Rabbi of Israel--and like many of the great rabbis, Lau is a master storyteller. Out of the Depths is his harrowing, miraculous, and inspiring account of life in one of the Nazis' deadliest concentration camps, and how he managed to survive against all possible odds. Lau, who lost most of his family in the Holocaust, also chronicles his life after the war, including his emigration to Mandate Palestine during a period that coincides with the development of the State of Israel. The story continues up through today, with that once-lost boy of eight now a brilliant, charismatic, and world-revered figure who has visited with Popes John Paul and Benedict; the Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela, and countless global leaders including Ronald Reagan, Bill and Hillary Clinton, and Tony Blair."--Publisher description.

Yisrael Meir Lau (Poland, 1937)

2012

Kinderblock 66: Return to Buchenwald (USA, 2012) is a documentary directed by Rob L. Cohen, featuring four Holocaust child survivors: Israel Laszlo Lazar (Romania, 1930), Pavel Kohn (Czechia, 1929), Alex Moskovic (Slovakia, 1931), and Naftali Furst (Slovakia, 1933).

"Kinderblock 66 is the story of four men who, as young boys, were imprisoned by the Nazis in the notorious Buchenwald concentration camp and who, sixty-five years later, return to commemorate the sixty-fifth anniversary of their liberation. The film tells the story of the effort undertaken by the camp's Communist-led underground to protect ad save Jewish children who were arriving in Buchenwald toward the end of the Holocaust. Kinderblock 66 also tells the story of Antonin Kalina, the head of the block who was personally responsible for saving 904 boys in Buchenwald."--Publisher description.

Rob L. Cohen, filmmaker.

Child survivors

• Israel Laszlo Lazar (Romania, 1930) -- arrived on Feb 6, 1945 (15 yo)
• Pavel Kohn (Czechia, 1929) -- Feb 10, 1945 (15)
• Alex Moskovic (Slovakia, 1931) - Jan 26, 1945 (13)
• Naftali Furst (Slovakia, 1933) -- Jan 23, 1945 (12)