Selected Events in 2005
Commemorative Event on the Liberation of the Concentration Camp Flossenbuerg
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Chargé d’Affaires John Cloud (left) and Munich U.S. Consul General Matthew M. Rooney (center) took part in the ceremony to commemorate the liberation of the concentration camp Flossenbürg by soldiers of the 90th U.S. Infantry Division on April 23, 1945. Dr. Jack Terry, (right) survivor of Flossenbürg concentration camp, also participated in the wreath-laying service. Renate Schmidt, Minister for Family, Youth and Senior Citizens represented the German federal government.
Speech by Dr. Jack Terry, a survivor of the Concentration Camp Flossenbuerg:
This past January at the United Nations General Assembly the German Minister for Foreign Affairs, Joschka Fischer said: “Democratic Germany has learned its lesson. The Holocaust has left an indelible mark. The Shoah is the ultimate crime of the 20th Century. We who can listen to the survivors bear a responsibility to recount their story to future generations.”
We each have individual stories – since a story not told is forgotten – mine very briefly is:
Sixty years ago, on April 23, 1945 at 10:50 a.m. the concentration camp in Flossenburg was liberated by soldiers of the 90th Infantry Division of the US Third Army. I was the youngest of the 1523 inmates remaining in the camp and I was still able to walk. The month before was my 15th birthday but I was unaware of the date. The 23rd of April, 1945 was also the saddest day of my life. As I stood on the outside of the gate of the camp a few meters from where we are now, I realized that I belonged nowhere, no one belonged to me, and I belonged to no one. For the first time in four years I felt something other than terror and hunger. For the first time in three years I was able to allow myself to recapture the images of my murdered family: my father in Majdanek, my sister was shot in front of my mother by Unterscharfuhrer Reinhold Feix(an ordinary Friseur from Neustadt in the Sudetenland) he then shot my mother, my brother who was killed by a Ukrainian guard and my second sister was murdered in the so-called Erntefest in October l943 in Poniatow, Poland.
Flossenburg was the third concentration camp which I did not choose.
Is it possible to convey the indiscriminate cruelty, the relentless hunger, the cold, the torture, the cries, the misery, the filth, the exhaustion, the stench, the burning flesh, the hangings, the suffering, the beatings, the horror, the deaths? How do I convey the utter degradation, the complete dehumanization – the dying? Can this be conveyed to future generations? I think not. What can be conveyed is what we have derived from our experiences: how precious freedom is, and I can think of no joy on earth equal to that of regaining the freedom which was taken from us. We also learned what William Blake knew when he wrote that, “Evil has a human heart.” However, evil can only triumph when bystanders are indifferent and do nothing. In addition, we can convey our observation that the veneer of our civilization is so very thin and how an advanced culture and extreme brutality can co- exist.
Although, I left Flossenburg as soon as I could, Flossenburg never left me. For us, former inmates, the events of our past became the foundation of our haunted lives.
Upon my return 10 years ago for the 50th Anniversary commemoration, I was disoriented. The Flossenburg Concentration Camp had been for the most part abandoned and covered-up almost as though it never existed. The place that haunted our memories was treated as though it were an ordinary piece of real-estate. Where the barracks once stood there is a housing community. Children about my age 50 years ago were playing at the very spot I was forced to witness hangings. The appellplatz was no longer an empty quadrangle and on it was a factory attached to the former laundry and kitchen. The Komandantur was divided into low-cost apartments. The rest of what was the camp was turned into an overgrown park with lovely shrubbery and tall trees. For us, former inmates, this was an additional painful trauma. Why was this allowed to happen? Certainly it did not promote the recounting of our story to future generations. Instead, it was a way to deny, cover up and obliterate what this ignominious place had meant to each one of us.
The numbers of individuals from various nations who were murdered and whose ashes form the pyramid in the “Tal des Todes” near the crematorium hardly tell the story of our deaths. It was, I believe, an attempt to deal with the guilt and shame by the generation of Germans in the immediate post-war period. Neglect and denial were not only characteristics of Flossenbuerg but also of towns and cities where the 100 sub-camps had been located. However, it should be noted that Germans have dealt with their WWII past admirably, especially in the past 20 years. It is understandable 60 years after the end of the war for many Germans to feel “enough already” – let’s have closure (Schlussstrich).
However terrible the burden history places on us, history does not go away no matter how much revisionists and New Historians may try. We must therefore be vigilant of those who try to equate and trivialize the historical truths of our experiences.
It is well to remember that the Holocaust defies analogy. It was a unique event not to be diminished in its historical importance. I urge you to be on the right side of history and not allow the horrors of this camp to fade from people’s minds.
During our gathering 10 years ago for the 50th Anniversary our pain was revived when we saw the altered state of this crime scene and many of us complained and vowed not to return. Happily, our voices were heard and our opinions solicited at the 1998 symposium initiated by the Landeszentralle and the Foerderverein of Flossenbuerg for the New Conception for the Memorial. My own and other contribution at the symposium was that, as much as possible, the permanent structures remaining at the site be restored and used for documentation purposes. That the geographic perimeters as much as possible should be restored, and the road (the steps) leading to the quarry and the Messerschmitt factory be retained as part of the contours of our experience.
At the symposium I asked that you rescue us from the impersonal statistical numbers and dreadful anonymity and restore our individual and family names. To give to the tortured person back the human form which had been taken from him in the process of dehumanization.
Flossenburg is rich in granite and many inmates perished extracting it. This granite was the quintessence of our suffering and can be said to be the paradigm of the phrase “Vernichtung durch Arbeit.” It would therefore be fitting to engrave our names upon granite blocks and place them in designated parts of the appellplatz where our tortured souls faced the Oberpfalz winds daily. The names are now available.
Flossenburg can still be and should be a place where our names can serve as a legacy of our individuality to future generations. This will make the Gedenksttaete more meaningful to the young visitor who will see names rather than abstract numbers. And I hope the visitors will take something valuable away to inspire them to make moral choices.
I wish to pay tribute to The Bavarian Government as well as The Federal Government for their support in preserving this memorial site. I want to especially thank the dedicated staff of the Gedenkstaette whose empathy for us, former inmates, has made our returning to this place much easier.
