Naked Among Wolves

In 1964, the East Berlinbased Berliner Zeitung am Abend located the child upon whose story the story was based: Stefan Jerzy Zweig, who survived Buchenwald at the age of four with his father Zacharias, with the help of two prisoner functionaries: Robert Siewert and Willi Bleicher. Bleicher, a former member of the Communist Party of Germany (Opposition) and the kapo of the storage building, was the one who convinced the SS to turn a blind eye to the child. When Zweig was to be sent to Auschwitz, prisoners who were tasked with compiling the deportees' list erased his name and replaced him with Willy Blum, a sixteenyearold Sinto boy. Zweig moved to Israel after liberation, and later studied in France. After he was discovered to be the 'Buchenwald child', he settled in East Germany, where he remained until 1972. Zweig received much media and the public attention in the country. Blum's fate was only disclosed after the German reunification.

Kapos and inmates would not have referred to SS NCO's and Officers as 'Herr' as this was only used for Heer, Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine ranks. The use of 'Herr' was seen as a nod to the Prussian aristocracy which the SS eschewed.

Referenced in La noche de...: La noche de... Desnudo entre lobos (2020)