The death of a Holocaust Survivor in Ukraine:

Killed Boris Romanchenko
It is with horror that we report the violent death of Boris Romanchenko in the war in Ukraine. The former Buchenwald prisoner and Vice President of the International Committee Buchenwald-Dora and Commands for Ukraine (IKBD) died in Kharkiv on Friday. A bullet hit the multi-storey building in which he lived. His apartment burned down.

Boris Romantschenko was born on January 20, 1926 in Bondari near Sumy and was deported to Dortmund in 1942, where he had to do forced labor underground. He tried to escape but was caught and sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp in January 1943. Other stations were Peenemünde, where he had to help build the V2 rocket, the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp and the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

For many years, Boris Romanchenko was vice-president for Ukraine in the Buchenwald-Dora International Committee. On April 12, 2015, he spoke Buchenwald's oath in Russian on the former roll call area of ​​the Buchenwald concentration camp: "Наш идеал — построить новый мир мира и свободы." ("The construction of a new world of peace and freedom is our ideal !")

We mourn the loss of a close friend. We wish his son and granddaughter, who brought us the sad news, a lot of strength in these difficult times.

 

The horrific death of Boris Romantschenko shows how threatening the war in Ukraine is for the concentration camp survivors. Together with 30 other memorials, the Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation has set up an aid network for former victims of Nazi persecution in Ukraine. Medicines and food are to be organized with donations. In addition, practical help for escaped concentration camp survivors is to be organized (pick-up from the Ukrainian border, help with accommodation in Germany).

With a donation you can support the survivors of Nazi persecution in Ukraine:

Donation account at the Berliner Volksbank
Recipients: contacts-kontakty
IBAN: DE59 1009 0000 2888 962002
BIC: BEVODEBB

Further information is available at: hilfsnetzwerk-nsverkehrte.de

I knew Boris. Not well, but over the years, we had chatted, smiled at each other, eaten at the same table.

I want to have words for this. But right now, it just seems like we never learn, and honestly, what do you say to that?