After liberation, often the only clothes available for survivors were unused camp uniforms, which were found by the liberating soldiers when they opened the storerooms.
Ehud Walter was born in 1926 in Haifa to Polish parents who immigrated to Eretz Israel (Mandatory Palestine). They decided to return to Europe, and during the war, Ehud was deported to the Buchenwald camp. After liberation, Ehud took a prisoner's coat from the camp storehouses. Despite the fact that the coat was camp garb, for Ehud it symbolized liberation and new life, as did many first items of clothing that survivors received.
"In February, I was returned to Buchenwald … After a few days I was put in the children's block, no. 66. Even though we didn't work, I became weaker and weaker, the food allocation decreased each day. In addition, due to vitamin deficiency, sores began to appear on my body and I had nothing to alleviate the suffering.
It was during those days that I began to hear the distant sounds of artillery and I understood that the front was getting closer. The Nazis began to evacuate the camp and I decided to evade the evacuation at any price. It began on 4 April 4 1945 and using all sorts of tricks I managed to remain. On the morning of 11 April, I could already hear the sounds of rifle fire nearby. I felt that the moment of liberation must be approaching. In the afternoon I saw the guards in the watch-towers running away. It was quiet and there was no shooting … I raised my head and saw the block "elder" stand next to the window and shout, "Children, we are free!" All the children ran outside and a few minutes later I saw the first US tank.
I woke up surrounded by darkness and I had no idea where I was, I tried to stand up but my legs wouldn't obey me. I crawled and suddenly I remembered that I was still in Buchenwald but that now I was free. I reached the hut, hardly able to drag myself. The next day, the American Army and the Red Cross began to care for us in a way that I cannot begin to describe.
After I recovered, I found my details on the lists that they had started to compile of all of the ex-prisoners, where it was written that I had been born in Haifa in Eretz Israel. I decided that I didn't want to return to the place from where I'd been deported but to return home instead. On 6 June 1945 I reached France and I arrived home on 16 July. It was a huge privilege for me to be able to rise from a positon of degradation to being a fighter in the War of Independence."
Yad Vashem Artifacts Collection
Courtesy of Ehud Walter, Kiryat Bialik, Israel
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