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Special Film Screening “Kinderblock 66 – Return to Buchenwald”

“Kinderblock 66 – Return to Buchenwald” is the incredible story of four men who, as young boys, were imprisoned by the Nazis in the notorious Buchenwald concentration camp and who, 65 years later, return to commemorate the sixty-fifth anniversary of their liberation.

The film tells the story of the effort undertaken by the camp’s Communist-led underground to protect and save Jewish children who were arriving in Buchenwald towards the end of the Holocaust. It also tells the story of Antonin Kalina, head of the block, who was personally responsible for saving 904 boys in Buchenwald and who was honoured by Yad Vashem in Jerusalem as a ‘Righteous Among the Nations.’

The survival of 904 Jewish children in Block 66 is near-unbelievable. Of these children, 65 migrated to Australia, most settling in Melbourne, to be looked after by the indomitable Mina Fink, ‘Mother of the Buchenwald Boys’. Today there are some 20 Buchenwald Boys living in Melbourne.