Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Michael Opas - [n.d.]

Resistance in Buchenwald

Okay, you said that there was some sort of resistance at Buchenwald.

Oh there were resistance.

Can you describe what that was about?

Yeah, there was...

What it in both camps? The Jewish camp...


...and in the political prisoner camp?

Yeah, yeah. There were--the other camp I don't know--we were never there. But I, I heard about it--that there is resistance. They had an underground. But in our pla...in our community--that smaller camp, when we arrived--first of all, there were--the very first day people came over to us and they said, "Who, who was, who was your uh, supervisor?" Blockäl...Blockältester. You know also a little German?


Blockältester means uh, the eldest of the, of the...

The block.

...the block. Well, naturally they, they were Germans--they were criminals. So they were, they were liquidated the very first day. And whoever Ka...whoever was reported as a Kapo, he was liquidated. Yeah, they would take, take, take care of them.

This is by the Jews in the camp.

In the camp, yeah. They were underground. We couldn't--you mean against the Germans?

Mm-hm. Any resistance against the Germans?

No, none whatsoever. We were guarded twenty-four hours, day and night.

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