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Women during the Holocaust: Photographs

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View photos connected to the experiences of women during the Holocaust, as well as the important role women played in resistance activities.

Anne Frank at 11 years of age

Anne Frank at 11 years of age, two years before going into hiding. [LCID: 49361]

Anne Frank at 11 years of age, two years before going into hiding. Amsterdam, the Netherlands, 1940.

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Gerda D. was sterilized after a disputed diagnosis of schizophrenia

A shopworker with a disputed schizophrenic diagnosis, Gerda D. [LCID: 79664]

On July 14, 1933, the Nazi dictatorship enacted the Law for the Prevention of Offspring with Hereditary Diseases. Individuals who were subject to the law were those men and women who “suffered” from any of nine conditions listed in the law: hereditary feeblemindedness, schizophrenia, manic-depressive disorder, hereditary epilepsy, Huntington’s chorea (a rare and fatal degenerative disease), hereditary blindness, hereditary deafness, severe physical deformity, and chronic alcoholism.

Gerda D., a shopworker, was one of an estimated 400,000 Germans who were forcibly sterilized. She was sterilized after a disputed diagnosis of schizophrenia. Later, Nazi authorities forbade Gerda to marry because of the sterilization. 

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Emmi G., a victim of the Euthanasia Program

Emmi G., a 16-year-old housemaid diagnosed as schizophrenic. [LCID: 79662]

Emmi G., a 16-year-old housemaid diagnosed as schizophrenic. She was sterilized and sent to the Meseritz-Obrawalde euthanasia center where she was killed with an overdose of tranquilizers on December 7, 1942. Place and date uncertain.

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Jewish women and girls wearing the compulsory badge

Jewish women and girls wearing the compulsory yellow badge. [LCID: 78590]

Jewish women and girls wearing the compulsory badge. Vienna, Austria, 1941.

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Jewish women at forced labor in a sewing workshop.

Jewish women at forced labor in a sewing workshop. [LCID: 74528]

Jewish women at forced labor in a sewing workshop in the Lodz ghetto. Lodz, Poland, between 1940 and 1944.

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Forced labor in Plaszow

Women prisoners pull dumpcars filled with stones in the camp quarry. [LCID: 50705]

Women prisoners pull dumpcars filled with stones in the camp quarry. Plaszow camp, Poland, 1944.

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Forced labor sorting confiscated clothing

Jewish women who were seized for forced labor sort expropriated cloth. [LCID: 80417]

Jewish women sort confiscated clothing in the Lodz ghetto. Photograph taken by Mendel Grossman between 1941 and 1944. 

Mendel Grossman photograph collection

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Barracks in Auschwitz-Birkenau

Barracks of the women's camp at the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp. [LCID: 79281]

View of barracks in the women's camp in the Auschwitz-Birkenau killing center in German-occupied Poland, 1944.

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Portrait of Jehovah's Witness Hildegard Kusserow

Hildegard Kusserow, a Jehovah's Witness, was imprisoned for four years in several concentration camps including Ravensbrueck. [LCID: 68381]

Hildegard Kusserow, a Jehovah's Witness, was imprisoned for four years in several concentration camps including Ravensbrück. Germany, date uncertain.

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Prewar portrait of Ala Gertner

A woman with light skin tone smiles at the camera. She is wearing a collared shirt and a large fedora-type hat cocked to the side.

Prewar photo of Ala Gertner. Bedzin, Poland, 1930s.

After being deported to Auschwitz, Ala Gertner took fate into her own hands. Upon arrival, she was assigned to forced labor at a nearby armaments factory.  After learning that they were going to be killed, Gertner, along with fellow female prisoners, began smuggling gunpowder and explosives from the factory with plans to destroy one of the crematoriums. 

During the uprising in October 1944, the prisoners killed three guards. They also set fire to Crematorium 4, making it inoperable.

The guards crushed the revolt and killed almost all of the prisoners involved in the rebellion. The Jewish women, including Gertner, who had smuggled the explosives into the camp were publicly hanged in early January 1945.

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Jewish parachutist Hannah Szenes with her brother

Jewish parachutist Hannah Szenes with her brother, before leaving for a rescue mission. [LCID: 60133]

Jewish parachutist Hannah Szenes with her brother, before leaving for a rescue mission. Palestine, March 1944.

Between 1943 and 1945, a group of Jewish men and women from Palestine who had volunteered to join the British army parachuted into German-occupied Europe. Their mission was to organize resistance to the Germans and aid in the rescue of Allied personnel. Hannah Szenes was among these volunteers. 

Szenes was captured in German-occupied Hungary and executed in Budapest on November 7, 1944, at the age of 23.

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Jewish parachutist Haviva Reik before her mission to aid Jews in Slovakia

Jewish parachutist Haviva Reik before her mission to aid Jews in Slovakia during the Slovak national uprising. [LCID: 38090]

Photograph of Jewish parachutist Haviva Reik taken before her mission to aid Jews in Slovakia during the Slovak national uprising. Palestine, before September 1944.

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Haika Grosman

Haika Grosman, one of the organizers of the Bialystok ghetto underground and participant in the Bialystok ghetto revolt. [LCID: 77570]

Haika Grosman, one of the organizers of the Bialystok ghetto underground and participant in the Bialystok ghetto revolt. Poland, 1945.

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Articles that Reference This Item

Jewish women and girls wearing the compulsory yellow badge. [LCID: 78590]
Article Women during the Holocaust

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