The dramatic story of a Jewish child’s rescue at Buchenwald and its use as propaganda in both East and united Germany.
At the notorious Buchenwald concentration camp, communist prisoners organized resistance against the SS and even planned an uprising. They helped rescue a three-year-old Jewish boy, Stefan Jerzy Zweig, from certain death in the gas chambers. After the war, his story became a focus for the German Democratic Republic’s celebration of its resistance to the Nazis.
Now Bill Niven tells the true story of Stefan Zweig: what actually happened to him in Buchenwald, how he was protected, and at what price. He explores the (mis)representation of Zweig’s rescue in East Germany and what this reveals about that country’s understanding of its Nazi past. Finally he looks at the telling of the Zweig rescue story since German unification: a story told in the GDR to praise communists has become a story used to condemn them.
Bill Niven is Professor of Contemporary German History at the Nottingham Trent University, UK.
Tabella dei contenuti
Introduction
The Protection of Stefan Jerzy Zweig
Building the Buchenwald Myth
The Genesis and Impact of
Naked among Wolves
The Cinema Film of
Naked among Wolves
Stefan Jerzy Zweig and the GDR
The Deconstruction of the Buchenwald Child Myth
Epilogue
Bibliography
Index
Circa l’autore
BILL NIVEN is Professor Emeritus of History at Nottingham Trent University, UK