Transcript The storming of the Bastille prison in Paris: The symbolic beginning

The legacies at Buchenwald
The legacies at Buchenwald
Acknowledgements
This source collection is
made by Chris Rowe
with the support of
Buchenwald Memoriall.
This collection is part of
the unit “Internment
without a trial:
Examples from the Nazi
and Soviet regimes”
that is developed in the
Multi-Facetted Memory
project.
More information
www.euroclio.eu/multifacetted-memory
Buchenwald’s original purpose and existence ended in May 1945 when the
camp was liberated and the Third Reich collapsed in defeat and disgrace. The
camp was then re-invented by the Soviet regime as a ‘special camp’ for
political prisoners; this camp was closed in 1950. Since that time, the
Buchenwald site has been a place frozen in the past, a place of ghosts and
tragic memory. Buchenwald’s existence was short: just under eight years as a
Nazi concentration camp, and about five years as a Soviet special camp. Its
legacy has been lasting and will long remain; it is difficult to conceive of a time
when Buchenwald, or any of the other camps could be used for any other
purpose than for remembrance and reflection.
The legacy is not only lasting but also complicated by competing ways of
remembering - and forgetting; and manipulating – the past. For 45 years after
its liberation, Buchenwald was in the Eastern, Communist half of Cold War
Europe, and this was reflected in the way the camp. And its liberation, was
commemorated. In the Cold War, two rival ideologies influenced two rival
ways of ‘learning the lessons of the past’.
In 1989-90, the Cold War ended and Buchenwald became part of the new
reunified Germany. Its legacy had to be reassessed and re-interpreted to
teach a new generation new lessons about history and memory, linking the
tragic past to the democratic, multiperspective values of a new generation.
April 1945
Buchenwald was the first concentration camp to be liberated by a Western Allied army.
Press coverage took place immediately in the form of reports, films and photos, and had
a deep and lasting impact on the Western world’s perception of the National Socialist
crimes and the realities of the camps. (Public Domain)
"I have never felt able to describe my
emotional reactions when I first came face
to face with indisputable evidence of Nazi
brutality and ruthless disregard of every
shred of decency. … I have never at any
other time experienced an equal sense of
shock. …As soon as I returned to Patton’s
headquarters that evening I sent
communications to both Washington and
London, urging the two governments to
send instantly to Germany a random group
of newspaper editors and representative
groups from the national legislatures. I felt
that the evidence should be immediately
placed before the American and British
publics in a fashion that would leave no
room for cynical doubt.“
Quote by Dwight D. Eisenhower, the
supreme commander of the Allied
forces, one day after the liberation of
Buchenwald.
In April of 1945 a American Congressional group visited the Buchenwald Camp.
Public Domain
After the liberation, American troops guided the Weimar citizens to walk through
the camp with them to show what had happened.
April 1945 (Public Domain)
Grove of Honour
Gedenkstätte Buchenwald
At the 50’s the most of the camp constructions were demolished.
Gedenkstätte Buchenwald
The "Nationale Mahn- und Gedenkstätte Buchenwald" ("National Buchenwald
Memorial") was dedicated on 14 September 1958.
SGBuMD
On the night of 17 August 1944, the SS executed Ernst Thälmann, a former
member of the Reichstag and chairman of the German Communist Party, in the
crematorium.
A memorial plaque on the wall of the crematorium commemorates him. (Photo to Peter
Hansen)
1950’s
A memorial plaque on the wall of the crematorium commemorates him. (Photo to Peter Hansen)
Gedenkstätte Buchenwald
Rudolf Breitscheid memorial (1960)
Gedenkstätte Buchenwald
Memorial to Henri Manhès (1961)
Gedenkstätte Buchenwald
Commemorative stone "Political Inmates from Bulgaria" (1970)
Gedenkstätte Buchenwald
The graveyards of the Soviet special camp
At the end of 1989, the public learned of the existence of graveyards where the victims
of the Soviet special camp were buried. The anonymous mass graves to the north of the
camp and near the railway station were marked with steel steles and landscaped as
forest cemeteries. In February 1990, the memorial erected the first cross in the northern
graveyard. That site eventually became an place of individual mourning with crosses
and commemorative stones.
(Photo: Naomi Tereza Salmon, Gedenkstätte Buchenwald)
The first wooden cross erected by the memorial in early 1990 in
commemoration of the victims of the Soviet Special Camp.
SGBuMD
Jewish memorial
(1993)
Gedenkstätte Buchenwald
Memorial to the Sinti and Roma victims (1995)
Gedenkstätte Buchenwald
Memorial to all inmates of Buchenwald Concentration Camp (1995)
Gedenkstätte Buchenwald
Permanent exhibition
Members of the memorial staff working on the permanent exhibition on the history of
Buchenwald Concentration Camp in preparation for its opening on 8 April 1995.
(SGBuMD)
Memorial site for Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Friedrich von Rabenau and Ludwig Gehre
(1999)
Gedenkstätte Buchenwald
Commemorative stone for victims of the National Socialist
military judiciary (2001)
Gedenkstätte Buchenwald
"Little Camp" Memorial (2002)
Gedenkstätte Buchenwald
Stone in memory of the Jehovah’s Witnesses (2002)
Gedenkstätte Buchenwald
Stone commemorating the women of Buchenwald Concentration Camp
(2003)
Gedenkstätte Buchenwald
Restauration
The ascent by way of a wide, light-hued stairway leads to the world-famous figural group
by Fritz Cremer (restored in 2002–2005). It is dedicated to the resistance struggle in the
camp. (Photo: Jürgen M. Pietsch, Gedenkstätte Buchenwald)
Commemorative stone for gay men (2006)
Gedenkstätte Buchenwald
Commemorative stone for members of the Allied Air Force (2014)
Gedenkstätte Buchenwald
"Der SS-Staat”
The cover of the original edition of "Der SS-Staat" by Eugen Kogon, 1947. The own
author was prisoner in Buchenwald. His book is a comprehensive representation of the
German concentration camps and is considered the first historical analysis of the Nazi
terror)
The cattle truck
Jorge Semprún (1923-2011) is a recognized Spanish who mostly lived in France and even wrote
primarily in French. In 1942 he joined the Spanish Communist Party in the exile in France but
consequently he was arrested by the Gestapo as a member of the French resistance against
Nazism. He was send to Buchenwald between 1943 and 1945. The experience of 18 months of
confinement underlayed/marked his whole life and it is reflected in all his works, specially in The
cattle truck (1963), Quel Beau Dimanche (1980) and Writing and life (1994).
This collection is part of the unit
“Internment without a trial:
Examples from the Nazi and Soviet
regimes”
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