Sign used during the anti-Jewish boycott: "Help liberate Germany from Jewish capital. Don't buy in Jewish stores." Germany, 1933. (Source record ID: X89-204/08)
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View of a barbed-wire fence separating part of the ghetto in Krakow from the rest of the city. Krakow, Poland, date uncertain.
During the Holocaust, the creation of ghettos was a key step in the Nazi process of brutally separating, persecuting, and ultimately destroying Europe's Jews. Ghettos were often enclosed districts that isolated Jews from the non-Jewish population and from other Jewish communities.
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Deportation from the Krakow ghetto at the time of the ghetto's liquidation. Krakow, Poland, March 1943.
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Isadore and his wife, Sossia, had seven sons. The Frenkiels, a religious Jewish family, lived in a one-room apartment in a town near Warsaw called Gabin. Like most Jewish families in Gabin, they lived in the town's center, near the synagogue. Isadore was a self-employed cap maker, selling his caps at the town's weekly market. He also fashioned caps for the police and military.
1933-39: Isadore felt the pinch of the Depression, but although business was poor, he was able to provide for his family. Shortly after the Germans invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, they occupied Gabin. Ten people were shot in the street; others, such as doctors and teachers, were taken away. The Germans rounded up the Jewish men and held them in the marketplace while soldiers doused the synagogue with gasoline and set it on fire.
1940-42: In 1941 the Frenkiels heard rumors that the Germans were evacuating some towns and deporting the Jews to a death camp. A cousin visited the family after escaping from a transport and said the rumors were true. "They put you in trucks, gas you, then throw your body into a burning pit," he said. Isadore's 3-year-old son ran to his mother crying, "Will they burn me, too?" Isadore urged his cousin to tell the Jewish elders. He met with them, but they did not believe his story and told him to leave town.
In May 1942 Gabin's Jews were deported to the Chelmno killing center. Isadore, Sossia and four of their sons were placed in a sealed van and asphyxiated with exhaust fumes.
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Rozia was born to a Jewish family in the town of Kolbuszowa. Her family lived outside of town, near her uncles. The Susskinds owned a flour mill and a lumber mill. Their home was one of the few in the area with electricity, which was generated at their mills. Rozia had an older sister, Hanka, and an older brother, Yanek.
1933-39: In the early 1930s, the Susskinds' mills burned down. Hanka moved to Cracow to study in the university and married, and Yanek was working in Kolbuszowa's Jewish bank. The Susskinds could not afford to continue Rozia's schooling, so she was apprenticed to a seamstress. When Germany invaded Poland in 1939, Hanka and her husband returned to Kolbuszowa and fled to the USSR with Yanek and Rozia's father. Rozia, 17, remained in Kolbuszowa with her mother, who had cancer.
1940-42: In January 1940 Rozia's mother died. In 1941 the Germans established a Jewish ghetto in Kolbuszowa, and Rozia and her uncles were moved there. Like many in the ghetto, Rozia was put to work sweeping streets, shoveling snow and cleaning the homes of the Germans. On June 20, 1942, the Germans issued a decree: Kolbuszowa's Jews had three days to leave their homes and resettle in the Rzeszow ghetto 20 miles away.
On July 7, 1942, Rozia and her uncles were deported from the Rzeszow ghetto to the Belzec killing center, where they perished.
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Hilda was the youngest of six children born to Jewish parents in a small Moravian town, where her father ran a dry-goods and clothing store. Her family spoke both Czech and German at home. Hilda was a tomboy when she was growing up, and competed on the Maccabi swim team. She attended a public secondary school in Hodinin, and wanted to pursue a career as a dental technician.
1933-39: In February 1933 Hilda moved to the Moravian capital of Brno where she attended dental school. On December 23, 1935, she married Leo Nitschke. Two years later, she graduated from dental school. In March 1939 the Germans occupied Bohemia and Moravia and quickly imposed restrictions on the Jewish population. The Germans evicted the Nitschkes from their apartment, and Hilda, as a Jew, was forbidden to treat non-Jewish patients.
1940-44: The Nitschkes had moved in with the family of Leo's sister, Edita. Hilda found work as a dental assistant with a Jewish dentist. In June 1943 Hilda and Leo were deported with Edita's family to the Theresienstadt ghetto in western Czechoslovakia. On October 28, 1944, Hilda, Leo, and Edita's family were deported to Auschwitz. There, Hilda was selected for slave labor. She was transferred to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, and then put to work in an aircraft factory in Raguhn.
Hilda was back in Theresienstadt when the ghetto was liberated in May 1945. After the war, she returned to Brno and learned that her husband had died in Auschwitz.
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The European rail network played a crucial role in the implementation of the Final Solution. Jews from Germany and German-occupied Europe were deported by rail to killing centers in occupied Poland, where they were killed. The Germans attempted to disguise their intentions, referring to deportations as "resettlement to the east." The victims were told they were to be taken to labor camps, but in reality, from 1942 onward, deportation meant transit to killing centers for most Jews. Deportations on this scale required the coordination of numerous German government ministries, including the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA), the Transport Ministry, and the Foreign Office. The RSHA coordinated and directed the deportations; the Transport Ministry organized train schedules; and the Foreign Office negotiated with German-allied states to hand over their Jews.
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