Event History
Kibbutz Buchenwald was founded in June 1945 by survivors of the Buchenwald concentration camp with the support of American army chaplain, Rabbi Herschel Schacter. However, the idea of creating a post-war socialist Zionist collective was hatched by a small group ofr men including Arthur Poznansky, Yechezkel Tydor and Eliyahu Gruenbaum and three Gottlieb brothers while they were still in concentration camp. Schacter helped requisition a farm in Eggendorf complete with animals and equipment, and the first sixteen members took possession on June 3. Kibbutz Buchenwald as founded on principles of tolerance and welcomed members from across the political spectrum. In July the Kibbutz moved to Geringshof, the site of a previous Jewish agricultural school founded in 1923 that managed to stay open until 1941 before its Jewish students were deported. At the war's end, the American military government recovered the farm and permitted it to be reopened for Jewish youth once more. Many of the group immigrated to Palestine aboard the Tel Chai refugee ship in 1946. At first absorbed by Kibbutz Afikim, the members of Kibbutz Buchenwald later split off to found a new kibbutz, Netzer Sereni. The last members of Kibbutz Buchenwald emigrated in 1949.
[Source: Baumel, Judith Tydor. "Kibbutz Buchenwald and Kibbutz Hafetz Hayyim: Two Experiments in the Rehabilitation of Jewish Survivors in Germany", Holocaust and Genocide Studies, V9, N2, Fall 1995.]
