Ken Waltzer 4 new photos from Buchenwald
I see Szaja Chaskiel and Joe Swarzberg and others celebrating in the annual Buchenwald Ball on the 70th last year in Melbourne, April 12 2015. “To life!” They knew how to celebrate and to dance in the face of their fate. I send my greetings and love. Also, I send my deepest feelings to the family of Frank Dobia who passed away this year and will be honored at the commemoration. Ken Waltzer
You post yesterday meant so much to me!
I do not know if you have followed my story, the story of an effort by my brother Hugh Schwartz and sister, Stephanie Quick, to destroy a remarkable Buchenwald heritage?
It is also 71 years since my Dad was one of the Americans who found the inmates I fleeing Buchenwald and entered the camp before the official arrival by Patton. Dad (then Captain Robert Schwartz) led the first medics into the camp. He also had s piece of contraband .. and Argus C3 (now in my library). He used that camera to photograph what he saw and, shortly after, liberated some chemicals from a Pharmacy to soup the negatives. Dad also found stuff to make an erzatz enlarger! Later, in Paris, he inscribed the prints
Monday April 11 marks the 71st year since the liberation of Buchenwald, where arriving American soldiers found nearly 1000 boys among the 21,000 survivors in the Nazi concentration camp. They were photographed by the Belgian photographer Gerard Raphael Algoet (middle), caught by American photographer Byron White being marched out of the camp April 17 (left), accompanied by some of their rescuers. Ken Waltzer
CLICK the image to read the posts about Buchenwald and the fight to save the pictures.
Sadly, my sibs and I are in court. They have threatened to let the picture rot rather than allow them to be preserved, digitized and made public. Why? You might ask Freud or his predecessor Oedipus. For now I am spending a lot of money ion the courts .
from Ken Waltzer
Some were later photographed while in France. I see Jack Unikoski in the third photo. Ken Waltzer
So, may I ask one huge favor? My goal is to prepare a book. Once I save my Dad’s pictures I plan to distribute them, with his notations and writings, to ALL the survivors. All includes the soldiers who liberated the camp. I will ask whoever can to add some words of their own. perhaps even a memory of my Dad.