Jacques Moalic, a 102-year-old former Agence France-Presse journalist, remembers vividly the liberation of Buchenwald concentration camp by American troops 80 years ago.

In an interview with AFP, where he worked for 40 years after World War II, the Buchenwald survivor spoke of his last months in captivity and the arrival of American troops on April 11, 1945.

He recounted his ordeal once again, speaking ahead of the 80th anniversary of the camp's liberation. Around 56,000 Jews, Roma and Soviet prisoners died there between 1937 and 1945.

In 1943, Moalic, then a young Resistance fighter, was arrested and eventually forced to board a train.

He tried to flee, jumping from the train, but was caught.

In December 1943, he was brought to Buchenwald, which stood on a hill near the German town of Weimar.

He was placed in Block 34. In the hell that was Buchenwald, prisoners pinned their hopes on Allied forces, who landed on the beaches of Normandy on June 6, 1944.

The liberation of Paris in August 1944 boosted their spirits.

"In the camps, people regained their courage," Moalic, former head of general news at AFP, said in his Paris apartment.

"They said to themselves, we will be free by........

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