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Dietrich Bonhoeffer, German Protestant theologian who was executed in the Flossenbürg concentration camp on April 9, 1945. Germany, date uncertain.
Wilhelm Kusserow, a German Jehovah's Witness who was shot by the Nazis. Germany, ca. 1940.
Members of the Slovak partisan unit "Petofy" before a mission. Their commander was Jewish partisan leader Karol Adler. The unit participated in the Slovak national uprising against the Germans. Czechoslovakia, 1943 or 1944.
The bodies of SS General Reinhard Heydrich's assassins and five other operatives were displayed in front of the Carlo Boromeo Church (now the St. Cyril and Methodius Church).
On May 27, 1942, two Czech parachute agents (Jan Kubis and Josef Gabcik) succeeded in rolling a hand grenade under Heydrich's vehicle. Heydrich later died from his wounds. Kubis and Gabcik went into hiding, joining with five other operatives in the Carlo Boromeo Church in Prague. On June 18, however, Nazi authorities became aware of their whereabouts and surrounded the church. All seven of the resisters were either killed in the fighting or committed suicide. Their bodies were removed from the crypt and placed on display in front of the church. Prague, Czechoslovakia, June 1942.
Jozef Gabčik was a Slovak member of the Czechoslovak armed forces who trained in Great Britain and parachuted into German-occupied Czech territory to assassinate Reinhard Heydrich. As Heydrich traveled on a familiar route to the airport to fly to Hitler's headquarters for a meeting, two agents succeeded in rolling a modified British anti-tank grenade under his car. The blast itself did not cause immediate death. Heydrich died a little over a week later. The official autopsy report determined that the cause of death was blood poisoning due to bacterial infections affecting the liver, kidney, and heart tissue. In retaliation for the attack, the Germans unleashed a wave of terror against the Czechs. For example, they destroyed the Czech village of Lidice, shooting all the men in the village and deporting most of the women and children to camps in Germany.
Polish partisans are hanged by the Nazis. Rovno, Poland, 1942.
General Michael (Rola) Zymierski (top row, center), commander of the Polish communist Armia Ludowa, poses with a partisan unit in the Parczew Forest. The partisan unit includes the Jewish physician, Michael Temchin (bottom right).
Hieronim Sabala (known as "Flora"), a member of the "Gray Columns" (code name for the underground scouts of the Polish resistance movement). Warsaw, Poland, 1939.
Yugoslav partisan leaders Josip Broz Tito (left) and Mosa Pijade (right). Pijade was a Jewish partisan with the Communist resistance. Yugoslavia, between 1941 and 1944.
A Soviet army instructor trains partisans in the use of grenades. Soviet Union, wartime.
Execution site at the Ploetzensee prison. At Ploetzensee, the Nazis executed hundreds of Germans for opposition to Hitler, including many of the participants in the July 20, 1944, plot to kill Hitler. Berlin, Germany, postwar.
Carl Goerdeler, former mayor of Leipzig and a leader of the July 1944 conspiracy to kill Hitler, stands trial before the People's Court in Berlin. He was condemned and executed at Ploetzensee prison on February 2, 1945. Berlin, Germany, 1944.
French leader Charles de Gaulle in London after France signed an armistice with Germany on June 22, 1940. De Gaulle refused to accept the armistice and led the Free France resistance movement. London, Great Britain, June 25, 1940.
Martin Niemöller, a prominent Protestant pastor who opposed the Nazi regime. He spent the last seven years of Nazi rule in concentration camps. Germany, 1937.
Dr. Joseph Jaksy (right) and a colleague. Dr. Jaksy, a Lutheran and a urologist in Bratislava, saved at least 25 Jews from deportations. He was later recognized as "Righteous Among the Nations." Bratislava, Czechoslovakia, prewar.
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