Honoring the Liberation of Mittelbau-Dora: Remembering the Past, Challenging the Present
Commemoration for the 80th Anniversary of the Liberation of Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp - Memorializing the 80th Anniversary of the Liberation of the Mittelbau-Dora Concentration Camp
Recently, a remembrance event took place in Thuringia, Germany, to mark the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp. The event united a hundred-year-old concentration camp survivor and numerous others, including Albrecht Weinberg, a teenage survivor of multiple camps, and Julia Romantschenko, the Ukrainian granddaughter of Boris Romantschenko, a fellow camp survivor.
In a moving Russian speech, Romantschenko spoke out against Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Her grandmother's home in the city of Kharkiv, Ukraine, was hit by Russian missiles in 2022, just before her grandfather's 97th birthday. Romantschenko echoed her son's current age, which was the same as her grandmother was when she was imprisoned in 1942. “Living in Kharkiv with my parents and my son, five generations of my family have experienced the horrors of war,” she said.
Political representatives from Russia were not on the guest list. Andreas Froese, the director of the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp memorial, consolidated this choice in his speech. He expressed their continuous remembrance of all Mittelbau-Dora survivors, regardless of their national origin, but highlighted the decision not to invite political dignitaries from Russia and Belarus. These countries have been fueling the long-standing hostilities against Ukraine and democratic values for years, he explained.
After renovations, the Memorial Cemetery in Nordhausen was re-dedicated in the afternoon. A site where more than 2,600 victims are laid to rest, mainly from the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp, the cemetery has a somber history. The American military administration resurrected the Memorial Cemetery in mid-April 1945. Shortly after, they forced men from Nordhausen to exhume and bury the bodies from the external camp barracks of the Mittelbau concentration camp.
The Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp was erected in 1943 and was home to an estimated 60,000 prisoners. In dreadful conditions, these prisoners were coerced to work in underground tunnels, producing weapons and rockets for the German military. Tragically, no more than a third survived their hellish ordeal, succumbing to forced labor, abuse, starvation, and disease.
On April 11, 1945, US forces set the prisoners free. Regrettably, few prisoners remained in the camp at the time. Nazis had either forced the majority of prisoners onto death marches or shamelessly murdered them before liberation.
References
- Concentration Camp
- Remembrance Culture
- Nordhausen
- Liberation
- Boris Romantschenko
- Thuringia
- Ukraine
- Kharkiv
- Russia
- Albrecht Weinberg
Key Points to Ponder
- The 80th commemoration of Mittelbau-Dora's liberation constituted a significant reminder of the unimaginable atrocities of the Holocaust.
- The event also served as a poignant reflection on current sociopolitical discord, particularly the rise of extremism and threats to democracy.
- Distinguished speakers, such as former German President Christian Wulff, emphasized the urgency to counter contemporary antisemitism and other forms of extremism.
- The involvement of Holocaust survivors, like Albrecht Weinberg and the late Boris Romantschenko, underscored the enduring importance of their harrowing stories as harbingers against future sufferings.
- The ongoing conflict in Ukraine lent a modern context to the commemoration, emphasizing the ongoing need for peace and unity.
- The ceremony in Thuringia aimed to highlight the enduring need for unyielding vigilance and robust commitment to democratic values in the face of growing extremism and threats to human rights.
- Julia Romantschenko, the Ukrainian granddaughter of a Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp survivor, used her moving speech to condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine, sharing her own experiences of war, which mirrored her grandmother's imprisonment in 1942.
- In light of the current conflict in Ukraine and long-standing hostilities against democratic values, political representatives from Russia were not invited to the remembrance event for the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp.
- Although EC countries uphold the freedom of movement, the work conditions within Mittelbau-Dora, where workers were forced to produce weapons and rockets, showcased a stark contrast to this freedom, where workers were subjected to forced labor, abuse, and, tragically, a high mortality rate.
