Robert Siewert

He was a survivor of Buchenwald concentration camp, where he helped save the life of Stefan Jerzy Zweig (through causing the death of a Romani boy named Willi Blum), among others.

[1] Siewert was born the son of a carpenter in Schwersenz, Province of Posen, German Empire (today Swarzędz, Poznań County in Poland).

Siewert became an active functionary of the Communist Party Opposition (KPO) and a member of the district leadership of West Saxony.

From 1933 till his arrest in late 1934, he was part of the initial national leadership of the KPO with Erich Hausen and Fritz Wiest.

[2] Siewert was charged by the Nazis with high treason and sentenced at the Volksgerichtshof to three years at hard labor in a Zuchthaus.

In late August 1944, Siewert gave a speech at an illegal memorial organized by Willi Bleicher for Ernst Thälmann, who had recently been executed by the Nazis.

By July 1945, he was being rejected by the secretariat of the SED Central Committee because of his KPO activities and he was replaced as district party leader.

In 1950, the SED began launching campaigns against the one-time members of the KPO, initiating repressive measures against Siewert and others.

Siewert died on 2 November 1973 in Berlin and was laid to rest in the "Pergolenweg" of the Memorial to the Socialists at the Zentralfriedhof Friedrichsfelde.