"I am not one who was born in the custody of wisdom. I am one who is fond of olden times and intense in quest of the sacred knowing of the ancients." Gustave Courbet

11 April 2020

Control.


On this date in 1945, the concentration camp at Buchwald was liberated.

From The United States Holocausr Memorial Museum ...

In early April 1945, as US forces approached, the Germans began to evacuate some 28,000 prisoners from the Buchenwald main camp and an additional several thousand prisoners from the subcamps of Buchenwald. About a third of these prisoners died from exhaustion en route or shortly after arrival, or were shot by the SS. The underground resistance organization in Buchenwald, whose members held key administrative posts in the camp, saved many lives. They obstructed Nazi orders and delayed the evacuation.

On April 11, 1945, in expectation of liberation, starved and emaciated prisoners stormed the watchtowers, seizing control of the camp. Later that afternoon, US forces entered Buchenwald. Soldiers from the 6th Armored Division, part of the Third Army, found more than 21,000 people in the camp.


From ThoughtCo. ...

The way, in which “Jedem das Seine” is placed into the gate is especially appalling. The writing is installed back-to-front, so that you can only read it when you are within the camp, looking back to the outside world. Thus, the prisoners, when turning back at the closing gate would read “To Each What They Are Due” — making it the more vicious. Unlike “Arbeit Macht Frei” in Auschwitz, “Jedem das Seine” in Buchenwald was specifically designed, to force the prisoners within the compound to look at it every day.

CONNECT

From the Sydney Jewish Museum ...

Kuba Enoch, George Grojnowski and Jack Meister in discussion with Museum Education Officer, Dr Rebecca Kummerfeld.

These courageous men were all in Buchenwald Concentration Camp, which was one of the first and largest concentration camps in Germany. They talked about their internment and shared previously untold aspects of their histories. 

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