April 11, 2007 marked the 62nd anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camp Buchenwald, in which 900 children and youths were freed. To mark the event, the Jewish Studies Program and James Madison College presented a lecture on Wednesday given by professor and Jewish Studies faculty member, Kenneth Waltzer, entitled “The Rescue of Children and Youths at Buchenwald” at 7:00 p.m. in Case Hall.
Waltzer said that over the years, he has developed an interest in Buchenwald and has studied its liberation at length concentrating heavily on the topic of rescue; a topic which has been largely ignored.
“No one wanted to supplement the main story – mass murder - for the sub story – rescue,” he said. “For many survivors there was a rescue story.”
Among the 900 boys rescued, 85% were between the ages of 13 and 17, 15% were under 12 and the two youngest boys freed were three and four. Among these boys was famed “Night” author Elie Wiesel and current Israeli presidential candidate Israel Meir Lau.
Waltzer said he believes there was more to the rescue than pure altruism; there were political motivations which played into it as well. The big question which needs to be addressed, he said, is why were there 900 boys left alive to be liberated in the first place?
In his research of reviewing documents and interviewing survivors, Waltzer found evidence to suggest that communists had vested interests in the liberation and had played an instrumental role in the process.
Waltzer presented some of this evidence in the form of photographs. One photo showed plain clothed men in berets leading the boys out of the camp while U.S. General Patton’s Third Army who supposedly liberated the camp, were pictured standing alongside the boys observing the action.
Waltzer also said there were documents which indicated underground communists and political prisoners in the camp controlled who lived and who died, citing transport lists with names crossed out, records of extra food and clothing being distributed in certain barracks and even schooling in two of the blocks.
Waltzer said to this day the concentration camp system is still a “black box” due to the secrecy surrounding its operations.
Lasting two hours, the presentation was a brief summary of Waltzer’s book-in-progress also entitled “The Rescue of Children and Youths at Buchenwald.”