Letters
To the Editor:
This is a response to "At Buchenwald, Ceremony of Bitter Memory",
(page 1, April 14), which refers to a resistance of several hundred inmates
who overwhelmed guards and took control of the concentration camp 40 hours
before the American Third Army arrived.
I was liberated at the Nazi concentration camp of Buchenwald on April 11, 1945. For me it was a glorious day, full of sunshine, an instant awakening of life after long darkness.
The recollections are still vivid--black soldiers of the Third Army, tall and strong, crying like babies, carrying the emaciated bodies of the liberated prisoners.
I was 17, and my life was almost extinguished.
Concentration Camp Buchenwald, about five miles from Weimar, was divided into two: The "big camp" consisted of Germans, French, Belgians and Italians with Communist records; even Leon Blum, Prime Minister of France before 1939, was imprisoned in Buchenwald. This was the "superclass", with privileges for survival.
Those imprisoned since 1940 enjoyed a special status, better food--some even received Red Cross packages. These included a large group of Russian officer prisoners of war, who were killed by the Germans several days before the liberation.
The "small camp" consisted of Jews, Poles, Gypsies, Russians, Hungarians, the "Untermenschen," the lowest strata of the human race in the Nazi order of things. The span of survival was 30 to 45 days. The survival kit consisted of one slice of bread, watery soup with no contents, constant beating and hard work, cleaning the debris in Weiman from American air attacks. The guards in our Barracks were Yugoslavs and Ukrainians, who excelled in brutality.
The survivors of Buchenwald owe their lives to the American people and not to the "resistance fighters". The short resistance uprising took place hours before the American forces entered Buchenwald. The German SS guards, sensing the approaching defeat, escaped en masse on bikes, on horses or just running. Credit for the liberation belongs totally and unequivocally to the American people, and not to cheap propaganda trying to erase the shameful memories.
I am one of 5 or 10 survivors from a group of 2,000 that was exterminated before the liberation. My brother was murdered in this group in a death march from Buchenwald to nowhere.
The Communist "resistance fighters" could not and did not stop the daily toll of killing, which went on by the thousands. We at the small camp had the appearance of Ethiopians; we were called the "Musalmans." Those from the "big camp" preserved the external human image.
Forth years after the liberation, the wounds are still open. To the end of my days I shall ponder human hatred and indifference to the suffering of others.
What are the real ingredients of hatred? Religion? Color of the skin? Obedience to the rules of a totalitarian state? Where does it start? At home, in school, in beer cellars? Or can the causes be found in the eternal search for the "sacred" scapegoat?
Benjamen Bender
Brooklyn, April 14, 1985
"LIBERATORS
UNDER FIRE"