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The Oath of Buchenwald

On behalf of the International Camp Committee, a group of Austrian, Dutch, Czech, Polish, and Hungarian inmates, which included Jewish survivors, organized a memorial ceremony on April 19, 1945, for those who had died in the camp.

Liberated prisoners at the first memorial service for the dead of Buchenwald concentration camp. The temporary memorial for the dead can be seen in the background.
During the funeral service. Photo: Donald R. Ornitz, U.S. Signal Corps, 19 April 1945.

©National Archives Washington

A wooden obelisk produced in the wood shop of the camp served as a provisional monument. It bore the inscription "K.L.B. 51,000" (K.L.B stood for Konzentrationslager Buchenwald) – indicating the estimated number of the Buchenwald dead.

Organized by nations and assembling in block formations, the survivors marched onto the roll call square accompanied by the music of the camp orchestra. A previously prepared memorial address was read in Russian, Polish, German, French, Czech, and English. In view of the Nazi crimes and the ongoing war, the address concluded with a jointly spoken oath:

We will only give up the fight when the last guilty has been judged by the tribunal of all nations. - The absolute destruction of Nazism is our device. The building of a new world of peace and freedom is our ideal.

This vow is today known as the "Oath of Buchenwald."

A few days later, the oath was altered with this frequently quoted phrase to align with the aims of the communist inmates: "the destruction of Nazism, down to its roots," which represents the destruction of capitalism through class struggle and the establishment of communist rule.

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