User:Kseniasavinova/sandbox
Memorial[edit]
«People of the world stop for a minute!» is a memorial of soviet prisoners in Nazi camps. The memorial is located in a special place where are situated a few more monuments and memorials dedicated to The Eastern Front of World War II. This place is situated in the Walk of Fame in the small district of Kuzminki in Moscow. The ceremonial opening of the memorial was on May 9, 2009. The initiator of the creation memorial was an organization called «Society of juvenile prisoners of fascist camps». The head of the society, V.M. Lisovsky, developed the project of the monument.
Description[edit]
The memorial consists of three black granite slabs. Each of them has a different meaning. The first slab is dedicated to 2.5 million juvenile prisoners taken from the occupied territories of the USSR. Out of this number, only 1.5 million were able to return to the motherland. The second slab was installed in memory of 5 million concentration camp prisoners and servicemen taken prisoner during the Great Patriotic War. And the third slab is dedicated to 6 million men and women who were forcibly taken to Germany. A little more than half returned to their homeland.
History[edit]
Many prisoners of concentration camps were killed, died from severe bullying, diseases, poor conditions of detention, hunger, hard physical labor, and inhuman medical experiments. In the autumn of 1942, the German army occupied a big part of the territory of the USSR, where 80 million people lived before the war. The German forces established their order on the occupied lands. Movements between towns or countrysides were allowed only with special passes. People of working age were forcibly sent to Germany. 5.3 million people were taken into Hitler’s empire, over 2 million are missing nowadays. April 11 is the International Day for the Liberation of Nazi Concentration Camp Prisoners. It was established in memory of the rebellion of prisoners in the Nazi concentration camp Buchenwald in Germany, which was on this day in 1945. The prisoners managed to disarm more than 800 guards. After American forces approached the camp on April 13, it was completely liberated. More than 21 thousand people were rescued, including 914 children.
Memories of some prisoners[edit]
Cruelty of Auschwitz[edit]
Anatoly Vanukevich is a former prisoner of the Nazi death camps Auschwitz, Großrosen and Nordhausen. At the age of 12, he was already without parents. Young Anatoly lived in fatal camps for 1,375 days and nights.
I cannot forget the episodes of the camp life in Auschwitz from 1943-1944. Before our eyes - the gallows and the machine, where we received our "portions" of blows. I had to go through the "Politische Abtielug" - the political department, where the former commandant of the concentration camp, Obersturmbannführer Rudolf Hess, "rewarded" me with lashes. From my memory, the guise of the chief doctor - a sadist in a white coat, Joseph Mengele, on whose conscience countless juvenile victims, has not been erased. For years I have carried portraits of these two fiends with me to show people
The death of friend[edit]
Masha Rolnikaite was born in Lithuania. During the war, her family was sent to a camp, her mother, younger brother and sister were killed in the Vilna ghetto. Having passed part of her life through several concentration camps, she miraculously remained alive. 20 years after the war, she published her first book based on her diaries that she kept in concentration camps.
Masha Mechanic was shot. Silk factory workers took out and hid several Jews. Then the SS men lined us up and said that every third Jew would answer for this. The SS man counted and ordered every third to take a step forward. I said: "Masha, I am the ninth." And she: "No, me." Indeed, she was ninth and stepped forward. Do you understand what life depended on? Because I was standing here and not there. The SS man went on to count. I asked her: "Masha, tell them that you knew nothing about this escape!" And she answered me in a calm voice: "Do you think that if the world becomes one less Masha Mechanic, something will change?
Evacuation from the camp[edit]
A Belgian Jew, Neiman Herman, was arrested with his family on a denunciation. He spent almost three years in the camps. When it became clear that the Red Army was on the outskirts of the camp and could soon capture it, Neumann, along with other surviving prisoners, was evacuated from Auschwitz. The prisoners walked twenty days.
Some did not have the strength to walk. Seven thousand people left the camp, but only 1200 people reached Buchenwald and other camps. Those who could not walk were shot on the spot. We did not even have shoes, we wrapped our feet in rags. We walked as if on glass, and they kicked us in the legs so that we could go faster. During the entire journey we were given potatoes only twice. In April 1945, Americans freed me from Buchenwald, I was 19 years old.