Survival, resistance and trauma in a secondary camp of Buchenwald

Survival, resistance and trauma in a secondary camp of Buchenwald - A micro-history of kommando "Hecht"

This research project will consist in an in-depth study of kommando “Hecht” at Holzen, near Eschershausen (Lower Saxony). A secondary camp of Buchenwald, “Hecht” was active from mid-September 1944 to early April 1945, and notably dedicated to the creation of an armaments complex, as far as possible underground, in the Hils range of hills. Medium-sized and with a mixed population of inmates, it was a kommando both typical and “man-sized”. By virtue of its geographical location, of the ways and means of its creation, and of its objectives, it was rooted in local life. Its relatively short duration makes it feasible to fully consider its rise, functioning and fall. Based on a wide range of British, French, German and Polish archives, and notably on the 203 drawings created at “Hecht” by the French Camille Delétang, the research project will specifically focus on the identities, lives, work, resistance and fate of the French deportees who were held in the kommando, on what happened to them during the final weeks of the world war and, for the survivors, on the conditions of their return to France and their life thereafter.

• Duration : from January 2025 to dec. 2026 (24 months)
• Contact : Guillaume Piketty
• Keywords : Seconde Guerre mondiale
• Programme SAB Sciences Po