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

KZ Buchenwald (see Holocaust Children Studies)

Overview

Buchenwald was a concentration camp in Germany. It was built mainly to accommodate political prisoners, but in the last months of a war a lot of inmates from concentration camps in the East (including children) were taken to Buchenwald.

The Buchenwald Boys

• The Buchenwald Children

When the U.S. Army liberated Buchenwald on April 11, 194, they found 21,000 inmates, of which 904 children. They were mostly adolescents; only around 30 of them were under 13.

Buchenwald was a labor camp for political prisoners, not an extermination camp for Jews. During the last year of the war, however, the Nazis began sending large numbers of Eastern European Jews to Buchenwald (including children) as a result of their failing war efforts. The children survived at Buchenwald because the political prisoners who ran the camp protected them, isolating them in a special barrack (Block 66), and other barracks.

The establishment of the children’s block was led by Antonin Kalina, a Czech communist prisoner. Kalina, with the help of other political prisoners, was able to persuade the SS at Buchenwald to let them create a block for the new influx of adolescents coming in from the East. The block used for the children was conveniently located in the corner of the little camp, ensuring that it was as far away from the Nazi’s watch as possible.

Every block had what was called a “block elder” who was responsible for ensuring that the inmates of their block went to roll-call, followed orders, did their work, and kept up with their daily tasks.[1] The block elder of Block 66 was Kalina, and he is primarily responsible for saving the lives of the 900 boys living in Block 66.

While conditions were not great anywhere in the camp, for the children of Block 66, they were slightly better. Unlike adults, most children could not fend off the disease, hunger, and physical and psychological trauma as well. Adults, specifically the communist prisoners directly tried to help the children. The other prisoners in Buchenwald did all that they could in their power to try and protect the children from the SS, and as the war was clearly ending, from being taken out on death marches.[8] Men would also give extra food to these starving boys and share packages from The Red Cross with them. Had there not been Block 66, most of these children would have perished in the camp.

The children were not made to work in the camp, as most were too weak and young to do any actual labor. During the days, when it was possible, the children were taught songs in Yiddish and told stories by some elders and older children to keep them occupied and filled with hope for the outside world.

Additionally, Kalina, to help protect the children in the barrack, made them change clothes, so as not to be dressed as Jews, and changed the Jewish sounding names of the boys, so that when the SS officers came by looking for Jews, he could tell them that there were none in his block

Most of the children were originally from Poland, though others came from Hungary, Slovenia and Ruthenia. Unsure of what to do with the child survivors, American army chaplains, Rabbi Herschel Schacter and Rabbi Robert Marcus, contacted the offices of the OSE (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants), the Jewish children's relief organization in Geneva. They arranged to send 427 of the children to France, 280 to Switzerland and 250 to England. [Vivette Samuels reverses the figures for England and Switzerland in her monograph, "Sauver les Enfants."] On June 2, 1945 OSE representatives arrived in Buchenwald, and together with Rabbi Marcus escorted the transport of children to France. Rabbi Schacter accompanied the second transport to Switzerland. Because of the difficulty in finding clothing for the children, the boys were clad in Hitler Youth uniforms. This created a problem, for when the train crossed into France, it was greeted by an angry populace who assumed the train was carrying Nazi youth. Thereafter the words "KZ Buchenwald orphans" were painted on the outside of the train to avoid confusion.

On June 6, 1945 the French transport arrived at the Andelys station and the orphans were taken to a children's home in Ecouis (Eure). The home had been set up to accommodate young children, but in fact only 30 of the boys were below the age of 13. This was only one of the many problems faced by the OSE personnel, who were not prepared to handle a large group of demanding, rebellious teenagers who were full of anger for what they had experienced. At Ecouis the boys were given medical care, counseling and schooling until more permanent accommodations could be found. Most of the children remained only four to eight weeks at Ecouis before being moved elsewhere, and the home was closed in August 1945.

Among the first to leave were a group of 173 children who had family in Palestine. They were given immigration certificates and departed from Marseilles in July aboard the British vessel, the RMS Mataroa. The remaining boys at Ecouis were soon transferred to other residences and homes. Some of the older ones were sent to the Foyer d'Etudiants located on the rue Rollin in Paris, where they boarded while attending vocational training courses or working at jobs in the city. Others were sent to the Chateau de Boucicaut home in Fontenay-aux-Roses (Hauts-de-Seine). Many of the boys came from religiously observant homes. Since the OSE could not obtain kosher food for everyone, they divided the children into religious and non-religious groups. Dr. Charly Merzbach offered OSE the use of his estate, the Chateau d'Ambloy (Loir-et-Cher) for the summer, and between 90 and 100 boys chose to go there in order to receive kosher food and live in a religious environment. In October 1945 the children and staff of Ambloy were relocated to the Chateau de Vaucelles in Taverny (Val d'Oise). About 50 of the non-religious boys were taken to the Villa Concordiale in Le Vesinet (Yvelines) near Paris that housed an equal number of French Jewish orphans. In the summer they went to the Foyer de Champigny in Champigny-sur-Marne (Val-de-Marne). In all the homes attended by the Buchenwald children vocational training as well as regular classroom instruction was offered. At the same time OSE social workers made every effort to locate surviving relatives, succeeding in about half the cases. By the end of 1948 all of the Buchenwald children who had come to France had left the OSE fold and begun new lives for themselves.

Children in Block 66

• Jacques Ribons / Jakob Rybsztajn (M / Poland, 1927)

• Henry Kinast (M / 1929)

• Bernard Ribons / Berek Rybsztajn (M / Poland, 1929-2011)

• Thomas Geve

Naftali Fürst, Pavel Kohn, Israel-Laszlo Lazar and Alex Moskovic

Other prisoners of Block 66

• Frank Dobia (b.1926)

Children in Block 8

• Elie Buzyn (M / Poland, 1929)

• Zoltan Blau (M / Hungary, 1930)
• Abe Chapnick (M / Poland, 1930-2016)

• Romek Wajsman / Robbie Waisman (M / Poland, 1931)

• Yisrael Meir Lau (M / Poland, 1937)

Child survivors

• Israel Laszlo Lazar (Romania, 1930) -- arrived on Feb 6, 1945 (15 yo)
• Pavel Kohn (Czechia, 1929-2017) -- Feb 10, 1945 (15)
• Alex Moskovic (Slovakia, 1931-2019) - Jan 26, 1945 (13)
• Naftali Furst (Slovakia, 1933) -- Jan 23, 1945 (12)

Non-identified children

Zysio Abramovicz, <Abram Czapnik>, Albert Dymant, Joseph Fachler, Léon Frydman, Moritz Freilich, Idek Goldmann, Lejzor Grunberg, Israel Grojsman, Jakob Kapelusz, Mayer Kilsztok, Léon Lewkowicz and Hersch Unger.

<Abram Chapnik>, Henri and Albert Dymant, Jozef Dziubak, <Salek Finkelstein>, <Wolf Fojgel>, Idel Goldblum, Jochan Goldkrantz, <Jakob Kapelusz>, Nachman Klugmann, Max Kozuch, Manfred Lewin, <Theodore Lowy>, Szymk Michalowicz, Hans Oster, Salek Rotschild, Salek Sandowski, Abram Schilcott, Jozef Schwarczberg, Moniek Solarz, Hersch Unger, Usher, Ivar Segalowitz, Moishe Shapiro, <Romek Wajsman> and Lolek Weinstein

• Joe Majer = Salomon Majer
• Philip Kanner = Fajwen Kaner
• Jerry Kapelus = Jakob Kapelusz
• Ted "Booby" Lowy (Lewy) = Theodor Lowy
• Eddy Balter = Elias Balter
• Willy Fogel = Wolf Vogel / Wolf Fojgel
• Max Kosuch
• Robbie Waisman = Romek Wajsman
• Leon Friedman
• Szaja Chaskiel

Nathan Swarc, <Romek Wajsman>, Leon Friedman, Hershel Ungar (Unger), Jakob Kapelusz, Beniek Mrowka

Abram Gzapnik, Herchel Unger, Joseph Fachler, Marek Lozinski, Heersh Linger

Yossl Baker, Henry Salter