This photograph shows a Jewish boy wearing the compulsory Star of David. Prague, Czechoslovakia, between September 1941 and December 1944.
Item ViewProperty confiscated from deported Jews is stacked in a synagogue. Prague, Czechoslovakia, 1941–45.
Item ViewCzech Jews are deported from Bauschovitz to Theresienstadt ghetto. Czechoslovakia, between 1941 and 1943.
Item ViewJews deported from Prague, Czechoslovakia, move their belongings through the streets of the Lodz ghetto in occupied Poland. November 20, 1941.
Item ViewJews at the railroad station before deportation. Puchov, Czechoslovakia, March 1942. (Source record ID: E39 Nr.2447/8)
Item ViewDeportation of Slovak Jews. The victims wear tags and are escorted by Slovak guards. Czechoslovakia, ca. 1942.
Item ViewDeportation of Slovak Jews. Stropkov, Czechoslovakia, May 21, 1942.
Item ViewDeportation of Jews from Plzen (Pilsen) to Theresienstadt. The building in the background is the town theater. Czechoslovakia, 1942.
Item ViewJewish deportees from Luxembourg, Austria, and Czechoslovakia during deportation from the Lodz ghetto to the Chelmno killing center. Lodz, Poland, 1942.
Item ViewEntrance to the Novaky labor camp in Slovakia, 1942–44.
Item ViewJewish inmates at forced labor in the Vyhne concentration camp in Slovakia, 1941–44.
Item ViewView of buildings in the Sered concentration camp in Slovakia, 1941–44.
Item ViewThe Aigner family of Nove Zamky, Czechoslovakia. The town was occupied by Hungary. Laszlo (Leslie) Aigner (standing, back) survived the Auschwitz camp; his mother (seated) and sister Marika (standing, right) were gassed there. May 1944.
Item ViewRuth was a child of middle-class Jewish parents living in Czechoslovakia's capital, Prague, where her father worked as a bank clerk. As native Czechs, her parents considered themselves as much Czech as Jewish. In 1933 Ruth was in her second year at a public girls' secondary school.
1933-39: The Germans occupied Prague in March 1939 and imposed many restrictions. Jews were no longer allowed to attend school, so Ruth's education stopped at age 13. Jews had to surrender many of their possessions such as radios, bicycles, musical instruments, and pets. They weren't allowed to walk in certain streets, or to go to a park or a cinema, or use a bus or a street car. For Ruth, normal life was at an end.
1940-44: Ruth was deported to Auschwitz from the Theresienstadt ghetto in late 1944. Some weeks later she was selected for a labor transport. Wanting to be sure she'd get out of Auschwitz, she managed to stand near the front of the column of 1,000 women. Then a command of "Turn about!" dashed her hopes. She ended up at the back of the line with those to be gassed. Nobody slept that night as, expecting to be gassed, they waited in front of the crematorium. By a twist of fate, the next day Ruth was put on another labor transport.
Ruth was deported to Lenzing, a subcamp of the Mauthausen concentration camp. Liberated by American troops, Ruth returned to Prague. She was the sole survivor of her family.
Item ViewRobert was the son of Jewish parents, Leopold and Florentina Kulka, and was raised in the Moravian town of Olomouc. After completing secondary school, he attended a business school until 1909. He began a business in Olomouc and in 1933 he married Elsa Skutezka from the Moravian city of Brno. The couple made their home in Olomouc.
1933-39: The Kulkas' son, Tomas, was born a year and a day after they were married. In 1937 Elsa's father passed away and the Kulkas moved to Brno, where Elsa and her husband took over the family shipping business. Two years later, Germany occupied Bohemia and Moravia and immediately imposed restrictions on the Jewish population.
1940-42: On January 2, 1940, Robert, Elsa, Tomas and Robert's mother-in-law were evicted from their house. That same winter, Robert's brother and sister-in-law managed to immigrate to Palestine [the Yishuv]. But Robert was determined to stay in Brno and save the family business. A year later, Elsa was forced to sell the business to a German for a mere 200 Czechoslovak crowns, or less than $10. On March 31, 1942, Robert and his family were deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto in the western part of Czechoslovakia.
On May 9, 1942, Robert was deported to the Ossowa forced-labor camp for Jews. He died within four months of arriving there. He was 52 years old.
Item ViewPreparation of food outside a barracks in Theresienstadt. Photograph taken after liberation. Theresienstadt, Czechoslovakia, June–August 1945.
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