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April 11, 2021 It was April 11, 1945 when the 89th Infantry Division of the Third Army of the United States arrived at the Buchenwald concentration camp breaking the barbed wire.

76 years ago.

A date and a liberation celebrated like every year so as not to forget.

The president of Germany, Steinmeier, reminding his compatriots of the inconceivable atrocities that the Nazis did during the Third Reich said, "Communists and democrats, homosexuals and so-called asocials were jailed in Buchenwald. Jews, Sinti and Roma were brought here and murdered" .

The speech in the nearby German city of Weimar.

"With its diversity of victim groups, - recalled Steinmeier- Buchenwald represents the whole barbarism of the Nazis, its aggressive nationalism towards the outside, its dictatorship inside and a racist way of thinking".

"Buchenwald is synonymous with racial fanaticism, torture, murder and elimination."



From Goethe to Buchenwald

Almost a mocking joke, to think that before the rise of the Nazis Weimar was known as the home of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who embodied the German Enlightenment of the 18th century, and as the birthplace of German constitutional democracy in 1919, the Weimar Republic.

During the Nazi regime, however, "Weimar" was only associated with the Buchenwald concentration camp.



What Happened Behind the Barbed Wire

It was founded in 1937. More than 56,000 of the 280,000 inmates and its satellite camps were either killed by the Nazis or died from starvation, disease or medical experiments before the release on April 11, 1945. "It was a dictatorship, a Nazi leadership responsible for the cruelest crimes and genocide ", Steinmeier said today," But it was humans, the Germans, who did this to other human beings. "



A celebration with covid rules

Holocaust survivors and their families have not been allowed to gather for the anniversary celebrations this year, due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The survivors, from different parts of the world, instead attended the memorial ceremony on Sunday, online.

Large-scale commemorations for last year's 75th anniversary have been suspended due to the need to respect social distancing.