On Monday, the Buchenwald and MittelbauDora Concentration Camp Memorials Foundation announced the death of Boris Romanchenko, a 96yearold Ukrainian survivor from four different Nazi concentration camps. According to his granddaughter, Romanchenko died at his home in Kharkiv, which was bombed by the Russian army. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has commented what happened by saying that Romanchenko “survived Hitler, killed by Putin”.
Boris Romanchenko was well known among those involved in Holocaust remembrance: he was, among other things, vicepresident of the Buchenwald and MittelbauDora Concentration Camp Memorials Foundation, who, announcing his death, said Romanchenko had “worked intensively”. to commemorate the Nazi crimes”.
Як ми дізналися від його близьких, наш друг Борис Романченко, який пережив нацистські табори #Beech Forest, #Peenemunde, #Dora it #BergenBelsen, загинув минулої п’ятниці в результаті вибуху бомби в своєму будинку в Харкові. Ми глибоко засмучений. pic.twitter.com/AmFbSwP9vf
Pen. Buchenwald and MittelbauDora Memorials (@Buchenwald_Dora) March 21, 2022
Romanchenko was born on January 20, 1926 in Bondari near Sumy, a Ukrainian city which, like Kharkiv, the city of his death, has been under attack by the Russian army for days. The Times of Israel writes that he was not Jewish but was interned as a prisoner by the Nazis at the age of 16 as part of the general oppression of the Ukrainian population during the occupation that began in 1941. Miriam Moskovitz, wife of Kharkiv’s historic rabbi Moshe Moskovitz, said Romanchenko was not registered with the city’s Jewish community.
In 1942, Romanchenko was deported to the Dortmund concentration camp, where he was forced to work underground. He then tried to escape but was captured and deported to another Nazi concentration camp in Buchenwald in 1943.
About 56,000 people were killed at Buchenwald, but Romanchenko survived and was later sent to a German military center in Peenemünde, where thousands of prisoners were busy building weapons. In particular, Romanchenko was tasked with building the V2 rocket, believed to be the first longrange rocket in history, widely used by Germany in the latter stages of World War II, and also known as the “Weapon of Revenge” (from its full name, Vergeltungswaffe 2 ). After passing through Peenemünde, Romanchenko was deported to two other Nazi concentration camps, also in Germany: MittelbauDora and BergenBelsen.
Romanchenko had taken part in public Holocaust commemorations several times in recent years. In 2012, he returned to Buchenwald on the anniversary of the camp’s liberation by the US Army and had publicly performed the Buchenwald Oath, a memorial speech written by the camp’s first survivors and recited in various languages on these occasions of commemoration.
In 2012, during the commemoration event marking the anniversary of the liberation of the Buchenwald concentration camp, Boris Romanchenko (second right in the photo) read out Buchenwald’s oath to “build a new world of peace and freedom”. pic.twitter.com/CorJ5eM6Ah
Pen. Buchenwald and MittelbauDora Memorials (@Buchenwald_Dora) March 21, 2022
Since the beginning of the war, Russian President Vladimir Putin has presented the invasion as an operation necessary to “denazify” Ukraine, since he is accused of alleged “genocide” against the proRussian population. Romanchenko’s death such as damage from Russian bombing at the site of Babyn Yar (or Babi Yar), the Holocaust memorial commemorating a Nazi massacre in Kyiv has drawn renewed attention to historical untruths and distortions in Russian propaganda .
The foundation, of which Romanchenko was vicepresident, has existed since 2003 and, along with numerous others, has built a network of help for the victims of Nazi persecution in Ukraine, in addition to preserving the memory of the Holocaust. According to the nonprofit organization The Blue Card, which is based in the United States and is responsible for providing financial assistance to Holocaust survivors in need, there are about 10,000 people in Ukraine. According to various scholars, Ukraine, along with other Soviet republics, among others, was the place where the Nazi persecutions of Jews began during World War II.
Also read: What was the Babyn Yar massacre in Kyiv?