Event

Kinderblock 66

St. Louis Premiere
USA
English, German, Czech with English subtitles
Director: Steven Moskovic
Documentary
By late 1944, World War II appeared to be nearing its bloody end. But even as the war's outcome became clearer, the Nazis continued to carry out their effort to exterminate the Jews of Europe. As the Nazis liquidated the extermination camps in the East, they forced tens of thousands of Jewish prisoners westward on death marches. Transports arrived at the Buchenwald concentration camp from Auschwitz in the winter of 1944/45.
Upon seeing this influx of new prisoners, the Communist-led underground at Buchenwald, which administered the camp on a day-to-day basis, made a conscious decision to protect the youths who were among the newest inmates. They established a children's block, block 66. The location of the barrack was furthest away from the camp's main gate and from the Nazi SS gaze. The block was led by Antonin Kalina, a Czech Communist and his deputy, Gustav Schiller, a Polish Jew. The underground strove until the last days of the war and beyond to keep the youths alive. On April 11, 1945, Buchenwald was liberated. Nearly 1,000 boys survived. On April 11, 2010, sixty-five years later, several of the surviving boys from block 66 returned to Weimar and to Buchenwald. This film is their story.
Introduction by Filmmaker Steven Moskovic and his father Alex Moskovic, survivor of Kinderblock 66
Sponsored by the Pohlman Family and Co-sponsored by the St. Louis Holocaust Museum & Learning Center.