Bearbeiter*innen

Oksana Khomei (20, Lwiw/ Ukraine)

I knew nothing about Hermann Klein. I just knew he was a kid. And that he might have lived beautiful life full of joy, love, and time spent with close relatives. Instead his destiny was Auschwitz, where most probably he was killed. Living on the territory of concentration camp it was hard psychologically to think a lot about victims of Buchenwald. But your thoughts were coming back almost every time, because of being surrounded by memories and traces of those times. Of course, there are thousands of victims of Nazi regime. However, if you deal with one precise name (in my case inscription of Hermann Klein’s name on the stone) it makes you think a lot. This name, mere fact of existence of that person, becomes evident, close to you; not distant and far like when one is learning historical facts. I am glad that I helped somehow is this great project to commemorate children sent to Auschwitz. And I think it will incite Buchenwald’s visitor to contemplate much more about lessons, learnt from following racist ideologies. The lesson learnt by mankind is importance of prior values such as humanity and assistance to those, who have different color, skin or language. All people from all over the world have to work on building constructive relationships with their neighbors – those who live the next door, like Jews living with Germans during the Third Reich’s ruling - and with neighboring countries so as to avoid discrimination and hatred, which are the impetus for atrocity.