The Sachsenhausen Memorial had lost all contact with the former concentration camp prisoner Volodymyr Kororbov from Kyiv. But in the turmoil of the Russian war of aggression, contact was made with the 96-year-old and his family. Most importantly, Kororbov is alive. Brandenburg’s Minister of Culture Manja Schüle (SPD) was able to locate the man through her own contacts in the Ukrainian capital and establish a connection to his family.
Kororbov stayed with his daughter. But one thing is already clear: he needs up to 300 euros a month for food and the necessary medication. According to statements by the family to a contact of the Minister of Culture, it is completely unclear how he is supposed to get the medicines in the middle of the war.
The reason for the personal intervention of Schüle, who is also chairwoman of the council of the Brandenburg Memorials Foundation, was a report in the Tagesspiegel about the fate of the former concentration camp prisoner. Kororbov wanted to return to the place of his suffering once more. To Sachsenhausen, where the Nazis locked him up in a concentration camp for a year and a half. Now Kororbov needs help – he no longer wants to leave Kyiv. Nevertheless, he can be helped.
A neighbor wrote to the memorial
Last year, a man reported to the memorial posing as a neighbor. He wrote by e-mail that Volodymyr Kororbov, born in 1926, would like to visit the place of his suffering again. He has not been there since the liberation in 1945. The neighbor wrote that Kororbov was still in good spirits and still remembered his imprisonment in the concentration camp very clearly.
This is another reason why the memorial tried to establish contact with Kororbov after Russia’s attack on Ukraine. Because on May 1, the Brandenburg Memorials Foundation wants to celebrate the 77th anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camps in the Sachsenhausen and Ravensbrück memorials.
The special 75th anniversary had to be moved to digital in 2020 due to the corona pandemic, and the celebrations the following year were also cancelled. The few people who survived the concentration camp were not able to return to the place of horror. After two years of the pandemic, the foundation finally wants to invite survivors again.
Because there are fewer and fewer who can report on the suffering of the victims and the crimes of the Nazis themselves. The contemporary witnesses are dying out. Among those to be invited by the memorial are two former prisoners from Ukraine.
Imprisonment in a concentration camp as a punitive action
The memorial had checked the information provided by Kororbov’s neighbor, such as the prisoner number. Everything agreed with what was in the SS concentration camp files. Kororbov was in Schwerin at the time, the Nazis had taken him there to do forced labour. But the Gestapo arrested him on October 19, 1943 – apparently, the historians at the memorial suspect, because of possible misconduct. The imprisonment in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp was probably a punitive action.
In the concentration camp, the SS registered the Ukrainian Kororbov with the prisoner number 72276. “He belonged to the large group of young Ukrainians who were deported to Germany as forced laborers and sent to the concentration camp for minor crimes,” says a spokesman for the memorial.
According to the family, von Kororbov’s wife was also imprisoned by the Nazis in Germany – in the Ravensbrück concentration camp. According to the information, both met after the liberation in Germany, when they were being prepared for the journey home to Ukraine.
“When we reached his neighbor by phone on Sunday, he was already in Poland”
After Russia’s attack on Ukraine in February, Sachsenhausen Memorial staff tried to find Kororbov. They reached the neighbor who, last year, had conveyed the old man’s wish to see once more the place of terror of his youth.
“When we reached his neighbor by phone on Sunday, he was already in Poland,” the spokesman for the memorial said last week. The neighbor was now fleeing the war himself – from the rockets that Russia’s President Vladimir Putin is having fired at the Ukrainians.
Volodymyr Kororbov, the neighbor told the employees of the Sachsenhausen memorial over the phone, lives on the east bank of the Dnieper in Kyiv. The situation there was particularly dramatic due to the Russian attacks. The old man is with his family and “now has to experience the war again,” said the neighbor on the phone.
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Through the contacts of the Brandenburg Minister of Culture, Manja Schüle, it is now clear: Kororbov is with his daughter, his grandchildren are nearby. He no longer wants to leave Kyiv, and at his age he no longer wants to go through the hardships of fleeing – even if the impact of the Russian attack is getting closer and closer.
The Tagesspiegel also received bank details from the grandson via the contacts of Minister of Culture Schüle. Manja Schüle and the Tagesspiegel have verified the authenticity as best they can. These include a photo of the passport of Volodymyr Kororbov’s grandson and a family photo showing Kororbov, his late wife, their daughter and grandson. The Sachsenhausen Committee has agreed to accept donations for Volodymy Kororbov and forward them to his grandson.
The Sachsenhausen-Komitee e. V. under the following bank details: IBAN 4510 0500 0017 9397 5929 (BIC: BELADEBEXXX), please indicate “Help for former Ukraine prisoner Kororbov” as the reference.
