All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.

How lovely it would have been, I think, as I write this on 8 April 2020. How lovely it would have been had the coronavirus not thwarted our plans, and that we could have come together again with those who lived through the liberation of the Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora concentration camps on 11 April 1945. Aleksander Afanasev from Russia would have been the eldest survivor, born in 1922; he is now 98 years-old. The youngest survivor who yearned to attend is from Canada: Julis Idel Maslovat, born in 1942, and now 78 years-old. On that sunny April’s day 75 years ago in the Buchenwald concentration camp, a so-called prisoner evacuation transport took place shortly after midnight (in the early hours) via the Weimar train station. On account of the enforced SS Death marches, hardly any prisoners remained in the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp, and those few who lingered there were already dying and wasting away.