蜜芽传媒

A Ukrainian man, Boris Romantschenko, who was 96 and had survived the Nazi Holocaust during World War Two, was killed during a Russian attack on the eastern city of Kharkiv last Friday when his apartment block was shelled. During WW2, he was sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp, and also spent time in the subcamp of Mittelbau-Dora, and the Bergen Belsen and Peenem眉nde camps. His death comes more than three weeks after President Vladimir Putin sought to justify his invasion to the Russian people by telling them his goal is to"de-Nazify Ukraine".

Dr Jens-Christian Wagner, Director of Buchenwald Foundation, says that he had feared something like this would happen, given that there are many hundreds of concentration camp survivors in Ukraine. He describes the reaction to Boris Romantschenko's death, and says that his organisation has been helping his family get out of Kharkiv. He goes on to say that the loss of Romantschenko to the community was devastating, but that his memories of the camps will survive, given the video and audio testimony that he gave during his lifetime.

"They survived the Nazi terror, and now they are threatened by Russian bombs."

"His whole life he was struggling against fascism, struggling for peace. The most important aim in his life was peace."

Photo: Boris Romantschenko outside the Buchenwald camp Credit: Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation

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