April 11 is the International Day of Former Political Prisoners, Concentration Camp Inmates and Victims of Fascism and War.
This is how the uprising of the Buchenwald concentration camp inmates, long prepared by Soviet prisoners of war, is honored. On April 11, 1945, the watchtowers, the internal and external security of the camp were attacked, the insurgent concentration camp inmates went beyond the wire mesh and raised a red flag over the administration building of the camp. The SS soldiers and officers were put to flight. The uprising saved the prisoners from certain death, because only the day before, the Nazis had decided to destroy all the concentration camp inmates. Two days later, the 3rd division of American troops advancing in Thuringia reached Buchenwald. Earlier, on January 27, 1945, Soviet troops liberated the largest concentration camp, Auschwitz, near Krakow in Poland.
During the years of World War II, more than 18 million people passed through the death camps, of which 5 million were citizens of the Soviet Union. More than 12 million of them did not survive. More than 14 thousand concentration camps operated on the territory of Germany and the occupied countries. These were places of terrible crimes. People were burned in crematorium ovens, suffocated in gas chambers, tortured, raped, forced to starve and work until complete exhaustion. Horrific medical experiments were carried out on them. By the admission of the SS themselves, the life expectancy of a concentration camp inmate is less than a year, but his labor is equal to almost fifteen hundred Reichsmarks of pure profit.
On April 11, we pay tribute and bow to the heroism, to the strength and courage of all fighters against fascism and Nazism, the barbarity of the twentieth century, marked by 50 million deaths during the years of World War II.
May the memory of them not fade, and may their souls rest in peace.
People, be vigilant! Never again fascism!