Bidspirit auction | Rare photograph of the last

Rare photograph of the last group of children rescued from the inferno of Buchenwald camp. April, 1945 - Rare press photograph of the last group of children rescued from the inferno of Buchenwald camp, marching out through the main gate to receive medical treatment. One of the most famous and chilling images taken by the U.S. Army in the first days following the liberation of the Buchenwald concentration camp. April, 1945. The photograph shows a group of boys and children (some still wearing prisoner uniforms) walking out through the gate of the camp’s main barracks, accompanied by their liberators - some fellow survivors and American soldiers. On the left, armed American soldiers stand watch. In the background stands the main building of the camp, with an upper wooden structure that served the Nazis as the camp’s guard post. The children march at the front, some with faint smiles on their faces. In the photograph, the children identified include: Izio Rosenman (at the head of the column), Jacques Finkel, Charles Finkel, Fredek Margolis, Lalek Ros, Salk Sandowski, George Goldblum, and... Zilber. Also: Misho Freilich, Willy Fogel, A. Grossman, Luchi Miller, Leiza Greenberg, Ushe Greenberg, David Perlmutter, Mark Lodzinski, Yankel Kaplush, Yosel Dziubek, Leush Hershkowitz, ... Jakobowitz, Reuven Wexelman, Stanley Weinstein, Hershk Zit, Henrik Kolber, Jacques Weber, and Philip Kenner. (Some have identified Elie Wiesel as the fourth child in the left column, though this claim is disputed.) One of the children in the photo who has been definitively identified is Stanley Weinstein. Weinstein stands in front of the fourth row and is wearing a cap he sewed himself. According to information from the Montreal Holocaust Museum website, Stanley Weinstein was born in 1928 in Jasło, Poland. In 1942, his parents and sisters were deported to the Bełżec extermination center. Stanley never saw his family again. As a young boy, he was selected for forced labor and worked in various factories in Poland before being deported to Buchenwald. When the American army approached the camp, the guards forced the inmates on a death march. Stanley was not evacuated and remained in the camp with the other children. He was liberated by the Americans on April 11, 1945. Among thousands of other children, Stanley stayed at the camp for two more months, awaiting relocation. He later immigrated to the United States, visited Montreal in 1952, and decided to settle there. For more information, see  here When American soldiers liberated Buchenwald on April 11, 1945, they found approximately 1,000 Jewish children in the camp, these became known as the ”Buchenwald Children.” The children had been hidden by Antonin Kalina, a communist prisoner in the camp, who sheltered them in an area designated for contagious diseases, thereby saving their lives. Most of the children were originally from Poland, while others came from Hungary, Slovenia, and Ruthenia. In a swift effort to care for the newly rescued children, Rabbi Herschel Schacter and Rabbi Robert Marcus, both serving with the American army, contacted the offices of the OSE (Œuvre de secours aux enfants), a Jewish children's relief organization based in Geneva. Arrangements were made to transfer 427 of the children to France, 280 to Switzerland, and 250 to England. On June 2, 1945, OSE representatives arrived at Buchenwald and, together with Rabbi Marcus, accompanied the children's transport to France. Rabbi Schacter accompanied the second transport to Switzerland. Due to the difficulty of finding appropriate clothing, the boys were dressed in Hitler Youth uniforms that were readily available in the camp. This led to a serious misunderstanding: when the train crossed into France, it was met by an angry crowd who believed it was carrying Nazi youth. To prevent harm to the children, the words “KZ Buchenwald Orphans” were painted on the exterior of the train to avoid further confusion. On June 6, 1945, the French transport arrived at the Andelys station, and the orphans were brought to a children’s home in Écouis, France. About 200 of them left shortly thereafter and immigrated to Eretz Israel aboard the British ship RMS Mataroa. Others were relocated to various places across France. The OSE worked tirelessly to locate surviving family members and succeeded in about half of the cases. By the end of 1948, all the Buchenwald children who had arrived in France had left the temporary OSE children’s residences and had begun building new lives on their own. Size: 28x21 cm. Very good condition.