Headlines of the history of the International Comittee Buchenwald Dora and Commandos

The actual International Committee Buchenwald Dora and Kommandos was created after the war and is the guardian of the memory of the underground international committee that played a key role among the internal resistance against the SS in the concentration camp of Buchenwald. It is the protector of the human values that sustained the fight of the prisoners to resist against the will of death and the process of dehumanization held by the Nazis. It is truthful to the oath taken by the prisoners April 19th, 1945 for the construction of a world of peace and freedom.

The international underground committee, founded seventy years ago in 1943, is the incarnation of the fight first of the German antifascists to take control over the internal administration of the camp, then of the resistant fighters among various nations to improve the fate of their inmates, structure and organize the resistance against the SS. April 11th, 1945, when the American troops came close, the international committee started the rebellion fight for their liberation and took possession of the camp.
After the liberation of the camps, one had to wait April 1952 for a gathering of former prisoners, that took place in Weimar and Buchenwald on behalf of the International Federation of Resistance Fighters (FIR° and the Organization of former victims of the Nazi regime in the German Republic of Germany (VVN). French Colonel Frédéric-Henri Manhès, one of the key leaders of the underground French resistance inside the camp of Buchenwald and President of the FIR suggested and put in place a board of former prisoners that became rapidly the International Committee of Buchenwald (ICB), and later the International Committee Buchenwald Dora (ICBD). Its goal was to continue to maintain a link with what had been the former underground international committee and to reshape, despite the Cold War, the solidarity born out of the fights.

The President of the new Committee was Marcel Paul, a first-rank communist trade-unionist before the war, one of the key man of the French resistance group inside the camp, and who after the war became Minister of the industrial production of General de Gaulle government as well as of the key-player of the nationalization of Energy (creation of Electricité de France (EdF).

Marcel Paul together with his former German camp inmates, acting as Vice-Presidents worked together with Walter Bartel, former President of the underground international committee, and Emil Carlebach.

Marcel Paul achieved an exceptional work, and despite the period of the Cold War, re-established the link with the former underground committee and the solidarity born out of the combat. The newly created Committee was intended to gather, beyond any political confrontation, the former prisoners of various countries from the Eastern and Western block. Therefore the Committee counted countries like Austria, the Czech Republic, the German Federal Republic (GFD) as well as the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Marcel Paul won this bet and gathered prisoners from all Europe thanks to his opened mind despite any tribulations of the international situation, in particular the reservations expressed by the Communist Party (the SED) inside the GDR.

Pierre Durand, a significant French Resistance fighter, played a key role inside the underground organization of the camp, being Marcel Paul’s interpreter. He succeeded Marcel Paul after his death in 1982 and became the President of the International Committee, co-headed by the German Walter Bartel. He carried on Marcel Paul’s achievements and opened up the ICBD to new countries, that were not represented, like Denmark, and even the US and Canada. He contributed to expend, next to the tribute paid to the anti-Nazi resistance, the memory of the dimension of the genocide perpetrated in Buchenwald and Dora that were represented inside the Committee with some delegates from the Community of the Sinti and Roms.

His wide-opened views and fine sense of diplomacy helped the International Committee Buchenwald Dora to go through the delicate period of transition following the reunification and he succeeded in creating fruitful and friendly relations with the new administration of the Memorials as well as with the highest political authorities of the State of Thuringia. Thanks to his help, the ICBD representing 28 countries became an institution for the memory of Buchenwald and Dora that can’t be missed and is held in great respect.

Concerned by the permanence of the ICBDs institutions, Pierre Durand established a Board of six members (the President, the Treasurer, the Representatives of Germany and France, and two Secretaries) supervising the Committee’s work.

Pierre Durand died in 2001 and I tried to follow the way shown by my eminent predecessor, based on my experience as a General Secretary of the French Association of Buchenwald Dora and Commandos during eight years and on my personal experience in the past, having been deported at the age of 14 years with my father and mother who both died in the camps. Therefore I always vigorously condemned any attempt of trivialization of the memory of the Nazi crimes, of fading and erasing their final goal: the complete destruction of the civilization in Europe.

I continued to bind links with the memorial and political environment in Germany, in particular when the ICBD solemnly signed together with city of Weimar the will of the former prisoners, July 14th, 2007. I think that I remained truthful to Pierre Durand’s spirit in proposing the elaboration of a new organization in 2011 in order to perpetuate the functioning of our Committee. I wish to cite and recall the role of some of us, former prisoners still alive who have played a key role inside the ICBD.

First of all, Floréal Barrier: former communist Resistance fighter, he is on the last, if not the last survivor of the underground resistance of the camp, who participated to the liberation of the camp. As a treasurer of the Committee and acting President of the Council of former prisoners (Beirat) of Buchenwald, he played and continues to play a key role to protect and transmit the values of the resistance and the history of the deportation. He is the main initiator of the project of renovating the museum of the Memorial and keeps helping with his experience and ideas. He is one of the key architects of the cooperation with the Förderverein in Weimar.

Next to Floréal Barrier and also very active members of the Beirat are two former prisoners, Ottmar Rothmann (Germany) who was arrested when he was still a very young man, and Gert Schramm (Germany) who was a victim of the racial policy of the Nazis and met with the brutal experience of the camp at the age of 15. He was the son of a black American engineer, who himself has been sent to Auschwitz and murdered. He was persecuted and sent to Buchenwald as one of the victims of the anti-black racism of the Nazis.

Günter Pappenheim who paid a high price for his exceptional act of courage that cost him two years of imprisonment in Buchenwald. Son of a German social-democrat representative opposed to Hitler and killed by the Nazis, he was himself a young teenager victim of the anti-Semitic persecution. He showed his sense of solidarity to French victims of the national-socialism by playing for them their national hymn. He was immediately arrested and spent two years in Buchenwald. Günter Pappenheim is the first Vice-President of the ICBD, representing Germany and is the head of the German association Buchenwald-Dora, where he plays an eminent role for the preserving the memory of the underground resistance inside the camp.

Elling Kvamme belonged to those Norwegian students who opposed the Nazi occupier and were sent to Buchenwald after their arrest. Representing Norway, he is one of the most assiduous members of the Committee, and was one of the first who acted in favour of the representation of non-deported members inside the ICBD.

Ed Carter-Edwards belonged to the 168 allied pilots whose aircraft was shot down during a mission over occupied Europe and sent for a few months in Buchenwald despite the international Geneva conventions. He represents Canada and his compatriots who were in the camp. He is a tireless organizer of events to remember their sufferings.

Danuta Brzosko-Mędryk has represented for a long time her country of Poland. She was a brave resistance fighter and passed her task for health reasons to Alojzy Maciak, head of the Polish organization. He also played an important role for implementing the presence of non-deported people inside the ICBD. She belonged to one of the 27.000 women of Buchenwald, and experienced, after the hell of Ravensbrück the hell of one of the numerous women commandos of Buchenwald, created in September 1944.

Among the comrades who are no longer with us, there are great figures of the antifascist resistance, founders and first vice-presidents of the Committee, or closely associated to its creation and development: Walter Bartel, German anti-Nazi, President of the international underground Committee, Emil Carlebach, Block eldest of Block 22, the Block for Jewish prisoners, one of the leader of rescuing action for the Children of Buchenwald, Willy Schmidt, German anti-Nazi, one of the very first prisoners of the camp of Buchenwald and leading figure of the military underground of Buchenwald, Reinhold Lochmann, German anti-Nazi, who played a major role on transmission inside the underground resistance.
Our comrades representing Eastern Europe are unfortunately all dead. Also they had been active members of the Committee despite events such as the Cold War, the antagonism between the two blocs and a reshape of the States after the fall of the communist regimes.

Let’s remember Sergej Bogdanow, first representative for the Soviet Union, Emil Halperin for the Ukraine, Dimiter Ditschkow for Bulgaria, Petru Muresan for Rumania, Miloslav Moulis for the Czeck Republic, and Milivoj Lalin for the former Yugoslavia.

The state of Israel entered the ICBD in 1995 and was represented by Robert Büchler, former deported prisoner in Auschwitz and Buchenwald, who died in 2011. Thanks to his action, the Shoah became part of the memory of Buchenwald and Dora inside the ICBD. As a historian, he wrote a book on the genocide of the Slovak Jews. He also wrote a major piece on the rescue of the “Children of Buchenwald” among one of them he was. It is thanks to his work that a list of the survival of the famous Bloc of children inside the small camp, Bloc 66, has been established.
Without Guy Ducoloné who died in 2008 and was the President of the French association Buchenwald-Dora and Commandos, the most important inside the Committee, the ICBD would not have evolved the way it did.

Guy Ducoloné was a communist resistance fighter, member of the underground inside the camp; he had first-rank political responsibilities in France after the war, in particular at the National Assembly acting as one of the Vice-presidents. He dedicated his life to the memory of the victims of Nazism and fascism and offered their memory his long political experience, his numerous national and international contacts regardless to their opinions, as well as his exceptional human qualities. France owes him the law indemnifying the French former deported prisoners.

Where does the International Committee stand today?

ACTUAL AND FUTURES TASKS OF THE ICBD

The only persons depositary for the vivid memory of the past sufferings and combats are the survivors. By testifying about the reality that they experienced under the Nazi barbarity, they have been essential contributors to the memory of the fight of resistance, of the deportation and of the system of the concentration camps. They did it as personal witness; they also did it in the name of their camp inmates, their family, their friends who were assassinated before being able to testify about the atrocities they had to endure; they did it, because they remained truthful to the oath of Buchenwald that they had been taken, April 19th, 1945.

The death or the decline of the former prisoners of the camps progressively erases the feeling of solidarity born out of the common suffer and fight; it also extinguishes the vivid memory. But for the same reasons, and more than ever, the defence of the memory of the victims of Buchenwald, Dora and their commandos is the main task of the ICBD. The International Committee is the defender of this memory, in particular with the political authorities of Germany and of other European countries, and with the various German and European institutions in charge of this memory.

The second next mission of the ICBD is to be a place for meeting, exchanging and coordinating the works and projects of the various national associations that are members of the Committee.
It is therefore the duty of the post-war generations, the families, the active bearers of the memory, the researchers and the historians to insure from now on this task, to cooperate closely and friendly with the Foundation of the Memorial of Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora and the Förderverein Buchenwald.