Buchenwald

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  • 1942, March 16, Monday – In the last few days I heard Auschwitz (or something like it), near Konigshütte in Upper Silesia, mentioned as the most dreadful concentration camp. Work in a mine, death within a few days. Komblum, the father of Frau Seliksohn, died there, likewise—not known to me—Stern and Muller, in whose homes the banned pastoral letter had been found. — Buchenwald, near Weimar, is said to be not necessarily and immediately fatal, but “worse than prison.” “Twelve hours work [a day] under the SS,” says Seliksohn. **p29
  • 1942 April 12, Sunday –  Yesterday something unheard of. After five months a sign of life from Ernst Kreidl: A card from Buchenwald. The joy at it was shattering. He is alive, he is not in Auschwitz, he is permitted to write every two weeks and receive post, he is permitted 15M a month—one can hope that he will survive! **p39
  • 1942 April 19, Sunday – At the front door the Jew’s star above the bell and “Steinitz” nameplate, in the middle of the door the Aryan wife’s visiting card. (Things are similar, but worse, on the floor above us: Ernst Kreidl—at present in Buchenwald—with the Jew’s star; in the middle of the door on a very large piece of cardboard: “Frau Elsa Kreidl, Aryan.”) **p41
  • 1942 May 22, Friday Midday – Our first assumption was correct: Telegram from an SS Obersturmbannführer to Elsa Kreidl: “Ernst Kreidl deceased this morning May 22, letter follows.” — We shall probably never learn why and how the poor devil met his death. […]  A month ago the laundry she brought for him every week was no longer taken. Two weeks later she received a postcard from Ernst Kreidl in Buchenwald: Things were not too bad, he was allowed to write and receive post every two weeks, he was allowed to receive 15M a month. Then nothing more and today the telegram. **p56
  • 1942 May 24, Sunday evening, Whitsun – Ernst Kreidl was “shot while attempting to escape,” at 2:55 P.M., that is, in broad daylight. Eva saw the printed form, completed in typescript. “Cremation at Weimar-Buchenwald Crematorium,” the urn is at your disposal. It is impossible to lie more shamelessly. The man certainly did not have the faintest thought of attempting an absolutely impossible escape. Sixty- three years old, weakened, prison clothing, without money… And in broad daylight… Undisguised murder. One of thousands upon thousands. **p59
  • 1943 January 18, Monday afternoon – On Sunday afternoon, as is usual now, Lewinsky was here. [… ] Talked about Buchenwald, near Weimar, where he was imprisoned during the Grünspan business. At that time I was not yet directly affected by the calamity; I had heard the name Buchenwald mentioned for the first time by Marta in Berlin only a short time before. Buchenwald will be described by others; / shall stick to my experiences. **p191
  • 1944 May 20, Saturday morning – Eva was at the office of Richter, the trustee of our house. He is no longer in the police prison. But he has not been taken to a sanatorium, rather to Buchenwald concentration camp. The secretary, Frau Streller, is carrying on the business; his wife, with the child born after his arrest, has moved into a little house, the older boy is attending school here in Dresden. **p316
  • 1944 September 19, Tuesday morning – Printed close together in the newspaper: Air raid on Auschwitz (concentration camp); “air raid on Buchenwald Concentration Camp near Weimar: the prisoners Thalmann and Breitscheid are among the dead.” How much of that is true and how much the covering-up of murder? An attack on Buchenwald is in fact said to have taken place. (Letter from there from Pauly to his wife.) But were Thalmann and Breitscheid still alive then? And who dropped bombs on Buchenwald? And … there are so many possible ways of mixing an atom of truth with lies, of hushing up murders ..  **p360
  • October 8, Sunday morning – Katz visited us yesterday evening; a different worry was weighing on him: If it came to an evacuation of Dresden, then Buchenwald concentration camp would be in store for those of mixed race and the men in mixed marriages; that is how the Jews in other evacuated cities had been dealt with. Katz called it the “narrow pass.” If the German front collapses, we Jews would have to go through the “narrow pass.” — **p367
  • 1945 May 22, Tuesday, seven o’clock, refectory – A small vehicle bore the words: “Alles kaputt.” It probably expressed the same sentiment as the inscription chalked on the wall of a house: “Death to Hitler,” where Hitler probably stands for the Hitler people. On the Feldhermhalle, carefully painted in giant letters: “Buchenwald, Velden, Dachau—I am ashamed to be a German.” **p488
  • 1945 May 25, early Friday morning, before seven o’clock – I heard the wildest utterances in the Blumenschule dining hall. There a soldier who had been discharged [.. . ]—blond hair smoothly stuck down with grease, spectacles, scrubbed race from Mannheim, work on the Atlantic Wall, abducted by the SS, father in Buchenwald, dead or alive? mother in Mannheim—or where? Himself a senior, wanted so much to study medicine. [… ] **p494

Source: 

  • ** I Will Bear Witness, Volume 2: A Diary of the Nazi Years: 1942-1945, Victor Klemperer, Publisher ‏: ‎ Modern Library; Illustrated edition

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