In contrast
Photo: Fritz Schumann
“Grass has grown over everything,” says Werner Krisch in an interview with “nd” and doesn’t just mean that there was no greenery in the Birkenau of his memory – only gravel, clay, stone, watchtowers, barbed wire fences, huge smoking chimneys. And his sand pit. In which he hides when he learns that his block is destined for death in the gas the next day. The son of a Jewish family from Berlin endures 14 days under Stubbenholz, freezing and starving. His brother Berthold was beaten to death in front of him. Werner wants to live. And outsmarts death.
When the first units of the Red Army reached Oświęcim, a small town not far from Krakow, on January 27, 1945, and encountered the largest concentration and extermination camp in human history, they found only a few hundred prisoners, more dead than alive . In the days and weeks before, the SS had driven its victims on a death march west, south and north.
Werner Krisch experienced liberation, self-liberation, on April 11, 1945 in Buchenwald. He doesn’t feel liberated yet, the fears keep coming back, only gradually disappearing, pushed aside by fulfillment in his job as a photographer in the GDR and family happiness. “Today I’m scared again,” the 92-year-old confesses shortly before his death. A stumbling block commemorates him on Bötzowstrasse in Prenzlauer Berg in Berlin. But is the monument he designed in memory of the dead still standing in Weimar?
The “nd” remains. Thanks to you.
The nd.Genossenschaft belongs to our readers and authors. With the cooperative, we guarantee the independence of our editorial team and try to make our texts accessible to everyone – even if they don’t have the money to help finance our work.
We are convinced that we do not have a hard paywall on the website. But that also means that we must continually ask everyone who can contribute to help finance our journalism from the left. This is nerve-wracking, not just for our readers, but also for our authors from time to time.
Nevertheless: Only together can we defend left-wing positions!
With your support we can continue to:
→ Provide independent and critical reporting.
→ Cover topics that are overlooked elsewhere.
→ Create a platform for diverse and marginalized voices.
→ Write to us against misinformation and hate speech.
→ Accompany and deepen social debates from the left.
Be part of the solidarity financing and support the »nd« with a contribution of your choice. Together we can create a media landscape that is independent, critical and accessible to everyone.
judi bola online sbobet judi bola online sbobet88