Synopses & Reviews
For its leaders, the German Democratic Republic was founded on the legacy of communist resistance to Nazism. They laid particular emphasis on events at Buchenwald, where communist-led prisoners threw off the fascist yoke in a heroic act of self-liberation. A key strand in the Buchenwald narrative was the tale of the rescue by communist prisoners of a three-year-old Jewish prisoner, Stefan Jerzy Zweig. His story became a focus for the country's celebration of its antifascist past. Bill Niven sets out to establish Zweig's real story: what actually happened to him in Buchenwald, why was he protected, and at what price? (There is evidence that a Sinto boy was sent to Auschwitz in Zweig's place, perhaps due to the influence of communist prisoners, evidence that was suppressed in the GDR.) Niven then explores how Zweig's story was presented in East Germany and what that reveals about the country's understanding of the Nazi past and the Holocaust. Finally, he examines the postunification reception of the rescue story, in which the GDR's deployment of it has come in for heavy -- and often, once again, politicized -- criticism. Bill Niven is Professor of Contemporary German History at the Nottingham Trent University, UK.
Synopsis
The dramatic story of a Jewish child's rescue at Buchenwald and its use as propaganda in both East and united Germany.
Synopsis
At the notorious Buchenwald concentration camp, communist prisoners organized resistance against the SS and even planned an uprising. They helped rescue a three-year-old Jewish boy, Stefan Jerzy Zweig, from certain death in the gas chambers. After the war, his story became a focus for the German Democratic Republic's celebration of its resistance to the Nazis. Now Bill Niven tells the true story of Stefan Zweig: what actually happened to him in Buchenwald, how he was protected, and at what price. He explores the (mis)representation of Zweig's rescue in East Germany and what this reveals about that country's understanding of its Nazi past. Finally he looks at the telling of the Zweig rescue story since German unification: a story told in the GDR to praise communists has become a story used to condemn them. Bill Niven is Professor of Contemporary German History at the Nottingham Trent University, UK.