Artifact
Browse an alphabetical list of artifacts from the Holocaust and World War II. Each object tells a story about the history and demonstrates human experiences during the time period.
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Page from volume 3 of a set of scrapbooks documenting the German occupation of Denmark
ArtifactPage from volume 3 of a set of scrapbooks compiled by Bjorn Sibbern, a Danish policeman and resistance member, documenting the German occupation of Denmark. Bjorn's wife Tove was also active in the Danish resistance. After World War II, Bjorn and Tove moved to Canada and later settled in California, where Bjorn compiled five scrapbooks dedicated to the Sibbern's daughter, Lisa. The books are fully annotated in English and contain photographs, documents and three-dimensional artifacts documenting all…
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Page from volume 4 of a set of scrapbooks documenting the German occupation of Denmark
ArtifactPage from volume 4 of a set of scrapbooks compiled by Bjorn Sibbern, a Danish policeman and resistance member, documenting the German occupation of Denmark. Bjorn's wife Tove was also active in the Danish resistance. After World War II, Bjorn and Tove moved to Canada and later settled in California, where Bjorn compiled five scrapbooks dedicated to the Sibbern's daughter, Lisa. The books are fully annotated in English and contain photographs, documents and three-dimensional artifacts documenting all…
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Page from volume 5 of a set of scrapbooks documenting the German occupation of Denmark
ArtifactPage from volume 5 of a set of scrapbooks compiled by Bjorn Sibbern, a Danish policeman and resistance member, documenting the German occupation of Denmark. Bjorn's wife Tove was also active in the Danish resistance. After World War II, Bjorn and Tove moved to Canada and later settled in California, where Bjorn compiled five scrapbooks dedicated to the Sibbern's daughter, Lisa. The books are fully annotated in English and contain photographs, documents and three-dimensional artifacts documenting all…
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Page from volume 5 of a set of scrapbooks documenting the German occupation of Denmark
ArtifactPage from volume 5 of a set of scrapbooks compiled by Bjorn Sibbern, a Danish policeman and resistance member, documenting the German occupation of Denmark. Bjorn's wife Tove was also active in the Danish resistance. After World War II, Bjorn and Tove moved to Canada and later settled in California, where Bjorn compiled five scrapbooks dedicated to the Sibbern's daughter, Lisa. The books are fully annotated in English and contain photographs, documents and three-dimensional artifacts documenting all…
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Page from volume 5 of a set of scrapbooks documenting the German occupation of Denmark
ArtifactPage from volume 5 of a set of scrapbooks compiled by Bjorn Sibbern, a Danish policeman and resistance member, documenting the German occupation of Denmark. Bjorn's wife Tove was also active in the Danish resistance. After World War II, Bjorn and Tove moved to Canada and later settled in California, where Bjorn compiled five scrapbooks dedicated to the Sibbern's daughter, Lisa. The books are fully annotated in English and contain photographs, documents and three-dimensional artifacts documenting all…
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Page of International Military Tribunal program
ArtifactFloor plan of the courtroom. The plan appeared in a mimeographed program booklet distributed at the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. 1945.
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Page of recipes from Eva Ostwalt's cookbook
ArtifactEva Ostwalt was born in Cologne, Germany, to Jewish parents. She had two younger sisters, Kate and Trude. In 1927, Eva moved with her daughter, Heidemarie, and non-Jewish husband to Dresden. Eva and Karl later divorced, and Eva received custody of Heidemarie. Mother and daughter moved to Merano, Italy. When Eva’s passport expired in 1938, she had to return to Germany. Believing that Heidemarie would be safer with her father, Eva gave custody back to Karl in Dresden. Eva returned to Cologne, where both…
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Pages of Hebrew prayer books damaged during Kristallnacht
ArtifactThe pages photographed here are from Hebrew prayer books destroyed during the Kristallnacht ("Night of Broken Glass") pogrom of November 9 and 10, 1938. These pages were damaged by fire during the destruction of the synagogue in Bobenhausen, Germany. The Jewish community of Giessen donated them to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1989.
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Palace of Justice Entry Pass
ArtifactEntry pass to the court building at the International Military Tribunal. This pass was issued to a U.S. military guard.
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Palace of Justice Entry Pass
ArtifactBack side of an entry pass to the court building at the International Military Tribunal. This pass was issued to a U.S. military guard. The pass is printed in each of the IMT's four official languages.
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Pamphlet cover
ArtifactIllustration from cover of a German anti-Masonic pamphlet by Friedrich Haffelbacher, entitled "Das Todesurteil ueber die Freimaurerei in Deutschland" [The Death Sentence for Freemasons in Germany].
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Pamphlet outlining the National Socialist Party 25-point Program
ArtifactIn the 25-point program, Nazi Party members publicly declared their intention to segregate Jews from "Aryan" society and to abrogate Jews' political, legal, and civil rights. Germany, 1931.
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Pants belonging to Marjan Glass
ArtifactPants worn by Marjan Glass as he dug anti-tank ditches for the defense of Warsaw, Poland, and then as he hastily fled the city ahead of the German advance on September 7, 1939. Glass, a lawyer, escaped with his wife and three-year-old son, and his wife's mother and brother. He left without taking the time to change from his soiled work clothing. [From the USHMM special exhibition Flight and Rescue.]
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Passover Haggadah printed in Shanghai
ArtifactA Passover Haggadah published by rabbinical students in Shanghai in 1943. [From the USHMM special exhibition Flight and Rescue.]
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Playbill
ArtifactProgram for an evening performance sponsored by the Shanghai Jewish Club. The program included the play "The Day of His Return" and a concert of Jewish songs. On April 27, 1943, the day of this performance featuring Warsaw Jewish actress Raya Zomina, fierce fighting continued in the Warsaw ghetto between German troops and Jews who chose to resist Nazi efforts to liquidate the ghetto. Terrifying rumors about the Holocaust reached the Jewish refugees in Shanghai, but they did not receive reliable news or…
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Portrait by refugee artist Yonia Fain
ArtifactPortrait of Janek Goldstein, in pencil, by Yonia Fain. Goldstein, a friend of the artist in Shanghai, was the son of Bernard Goldstein, who was active in the Bundist underground of the Warsaw ghetto and participated in the 1943 uprising. [From the USHMM special exhibition Flight and Rescue.]
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Portrait by refugee artist Yonia Fain
ArtifactPortrait of Semek Kushner, in pencil, by Yonia Fain. Kushner's father and brother were killed in Shanghai near the end of the war during an American air raid on Hongkew. [From the USHMM special exhibition Flight and Rescue.]
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Portrait of Masha Rolnik, by Esther Lurie
Artifact"Portrait of Masha Rolnik, Leibisch concentration camp, 1944" by Esther Lurie. This image shows three sketches of Masha Rolnikaite (Rolnik) drawn by Esther Lurie, in approximately 1965, for the cover of Masha's memoir, Ikh muz dertseyin [I have to tell]. They reproduce the drawing of Masha that Esther made when both were prisoners in a forced-labor camp. Esther Lurie was active in documenting scenes of life in the Kovno ghetto and in forced-labor camps. She buried most of her works in the hope that…
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Poster advertising anti-Jewish boycott
ArtifactThis poster from Munich, Germany, proclaims the April 1, 1933, boycott of Jewish-owned businesses and services offered by Jewish professionals. It calls on all Germans to honor the boycott, which began at 10 a.m. The poster was signed by the radical Nazi antisemite, Julius Streicher, official organizer of the boycott.
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Poster depicting the Statue of Liberty and flags of Allied Nations
ArtifactPoster titled “The United Nations Fight For Freedom.” It was one of many posters produced by the Office of War Information, the United States’s official propaganda agency during World War II. Canadian-American commercial artist Steve Broder (1902-1992) designed this work to bolster confidence in the Allied war effort against the Axis Powers (Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan). It depicts the 30 flags of countries that signed the Declaration by the United Nations and declared war on the…
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Postwar testimony of Rudolf Höss
ArtifactA page from the transcript of the testimony given by Rudolf Höss at the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. At the trial, Höss testified about the gassing of Jews of Auschwitz, where he was commandant. He responded in German and communicated through a translator. Testimony dated April 2, 1946.
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Print of "Portrait of a Young Girl with Two Yellow Badges" by Esther Lurie
ArtifactThis image shows a print of a portrait drawing by artist Esther Lurie. Lurie documented scenes of life in the Kovno ghetto and contributed to the secret archives there. The subject of the portrait is a young woman in a checked dress with two Star of David patches. This print is a version of the drawing, "Portrait of a Young Girl with Two Yellow Badges," which Lurie did in the Kovno ghetto and for which she was awarded the Dizengoff Prize in 1946 in Palestine. Because the majority of Lurie's works were…
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Railcar: Interior
ArtifactMany different kinds of railway cars were used for deportations. They varied in size and weight. The railway car on display in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's Permanent Exhibition is of just one type used. The dimensions of the railway car in the Museum's exhibition are as follows: Total length 31 feet 6 inches (9.6 meters); interior space for deportees 26 feet 2 inches (8 meters). Total height 14 feet (4.3 meters) from the bottom of the wheel to the highest point of the car; interior space…
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Recipes from Eva Ostwalt's cookbook
ArtifactEva Ostwalt was born in Cologne, Germany, to Jewish parents. She had two younger sisters, Kate and Trude. In 1927, Eva moved with her daughter, Heidemarie, and non-Jewish husband to Dresden. Eva and Karl later divorced, and Eva received custody of Heidemarie. Mother and daughter moved to Merano, Italy. When Eva’s passport expired in 1938, she had to return to Germany. Believing that Heidemarie would be safer with her father, Eva gave custody back to Karl in Dresden. Eva returned to Cologne, where both…
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Refugee's notebook
ArtifactNotebook of Josef Fiszman, a refugee writer from Warsaw. He sold articles to Jewish newspapers in Shanghai and Harbin but still needed help to live from the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. Writing in Yiddish, Fiszman rotated the notebook in order to write from right to left (the words "Note book" thus appear to be upside down in this image). [From the USHMM special exhibition Flight and Rescue.]
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Refugee's suitcase
ArtifactA suitcase used (ca. 1939) by a Jewish refugee fleeing Nazi-occupied Europe to Japan. The suitcase is covered with labels from various stops along the journey, including one from a hotel in Moscow (top left), one for the NYK Line (top middle), and six from hotels throughout Japan. [From the USHMM special exhibition Flight and Rescue.]
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Refugee's writings
ArtifactYiddish writings of Josef Fiszman, a refugee writer from Warsaw. These are some Inside pages of a Fiszman's journal. The journal was written in Shanghai and is entitled "The Sun Never Shines At Night." [From the USHMM special exhibition Flight and Rescue.]
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Religious articles found on death march victim
ArtifactSet of tefillin in an embroidered bag. Tefillin are ritual objects worn by religious Jews during weekday morning prayers. This set was found on the body of a death march victim, who was buried near Regensburg, Germany.
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Reverse of a Kripo warrant disc listing the officer's number
ArtifactReverse of the official identification tag (warrant badge) for the Kriminalpolizei or Kripo, the detective police force of Nazi Germany. It reads Staatliche Kriminalpolizei (State Criminal Police) and identifies the officer's number as 8409.
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Romani (Gypsy) musician's violin used in a prewar musical band
ArtifactViolin owned by Rita Prigmore and originally used by her father, who played with his four brothers in a band in Germany before World War II. Rita and her family were members of the Sinti group of Roma (Gypsies). She and her twin sister Rolanda were born in 1943. Rolanda died as a result of medical experiments on twins in the clinic where they were born. Rita and her mother survived the war and moved to the United States, before returning to Germany to run a Sinti human rights organization that sought to…
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Romani (Gypsy) woman's skirt
ArtifactThis taffeta and cotton skirt dates from the 1920s. It belonged to a Romani (Gypsy) woman who was born in Frankfurt, Germany, and who lived in Germany before the war. She was arrested by the Nazis and interned in the Auschwitz, Ravensbrück, Mauthausen, and Bergen-Belsen camps. She died in Bergen-Belsen in March 1945, shortly before the camp's liberation. Her husband and two of her six children were also killed in the camps.
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Rosh Hashanah card
ArtifactSorle and Shalomis Gorfinkel presented this card to their parents on the occasion of Rosh Hashanah 5704, the Jewish New Year 1943. The Gorfinkel family was part of the Mir Yeshiva community in Shanghai.
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Rosh Hashanah card
ArtifactA Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year) greeting card. Sorle and Shalomis Gorfinkel presented this card to their parents on the occasion of Rosh Hashanah 5704, the Jewish New Year 1943. The Gorfinkel family was part of the Mir Yeshiva community in Shanghai.
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Sandals
ArtifactWooden sandals worn by a member of the Mir Yeshiva in Shanghai. [From the USHMM special exhibition Flight and Rescue.]
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Scales used by refugees
ArtifactScale used by refugees Masza Swislocki and George Lieberfreund to weigh jars of artificial honey, which they manufactured and sold in the restricted area of Shanghai. [From the USHMM special exhibition Flight and Rescue.]
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Scrapbook
ArtifactMany observers at the IMT, aware of the historic nature of the trial, created scrapbooks to preserve their own record of the Nuremberg court. First Lieutenant Herman E. Klappert, Jr. was a photographer with the U.S. Army Signal Corps who assembled three such scrapbooks. Klappert's albums consist almost entirely of photographs that he printed himself. Also included in the albums are original autographs from the defendants and other principal figures at the trial, official identification cards issued to…
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Scrapbook
ArtifactMany observers at the International Military Tribunal (IMT) at Nuremberg, aware of the historic nature of the trial, created scrapbooks to preserve their own record of the Nuremberg court. First Lieutenant Herman E. Klappert, Jr. was a photographer with the U.S. Army Signal Corps who assembled three such scrapbooks. Klappert's albums consist almost entirely of photographs that he printed himself. Also included in the albums are original autographs from the defendants and other principal figures at the…
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Selma Engel diary entry about arrival in Sobibor
ArtifactDiaries reveal some of the most intimate, heart-wrenching accounts of the Holocaust. They record in real time the feelings of loss, fear, and, sometimes, hope of those facing extraordinary peril. Selma Wijnberg and Chaim Engel met and fell in love in the Sobibor killing center. After the young couple made a daring escape during the camp uprising and fled into hiding, Selma began a diary to record their experiences. The diary was written in 1943-1944 while Selma was in hiding in German-occupied Poland.…
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Selma Engel diary entry about escaping during the Sobibor uprising
ArtifactDiaries reveal some of the most intimate, heart-wrenching accounts of the Holocaust. They record in real time the feelings of loss, fear, and, sometimes, hope of those facing extraordinary peril. Selma Wijnberg and Chaim Engel met and fell in love in the Sobibor killing center. After the young couple made a daring escape during the camp uprising and fled into hiding, Selma began a diary to record their experiences. The diary was written in 1943-1944 while Selma was in hiding in German-occupied…
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Selma Engel diary entry about life in hiding
ArtifactDiaries reveal some of the most intimate, heart-wrenching accounts of the Holocaust. They record in real time the feelings of loss, fear, and, sometimes, hope of those facing extraordinary peril. Selma Wijnberg and Chaim Engel met and fell in love in the Sobibor killing center. After the young couple made a daring escape during the camp uprising and fled into hiding, Selma began a diary to record their experiences. The diary was written in 1943-1944 while Selma was in hiding in German-occupied…
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Sign excluding Jews from public places
ArtifactSigns excluding Jews, such as the sign shown here, were posted in public places (including parks, theaters, movie houses, and restaurants) throughout Nazi Germany. This sign states in German: "Jews are not wanted here."
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Sign from Shanghai Ghetto
ArtifactOne of many signs displayed along the Shanghai ghetto's boundaries: "Stateless Refugees are Prohibited to Pass Here without Permission". This plaque was removed by a refugee at the end of the war. [From the USHMM special exhibition Flight and Rescue.]
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Silver kiddush cups of Caspary family
ArtifactGoblets used in Shanghai by the Caspary family for blessings (Kiddush) over wine on the Sabbath or Jewish holidays. The Orthodox Casparys ran a kosher restaurant frequented by yeshiva students from Poland. [From the USHMM special exhibition Flight and Rescue.]
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Singer sewing machine from the Lodz ghetto
ArtifactThis Singer sewing machine was used by shoemakers in the Lodz ghetto, Poland. As early as May 1940, the Germans began to establish factories in the ghetto and to utilize Jewish residents for forced labor. By August 1942, there were almost 100 factories within the ghetto. The major factories produced textiles, especially uniforms, for the German army.
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Sketch from a scrapbook presented during an inspection of Djelfa
ArtifactSketch from the scrapbook of Donald Coster presented to him during his inspection of the internment camp in Djelfa. The page is entitled, "All roads don't lead to Rome." Djelfa, Algeria, ca. 1941.
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Sketch from scrapbook presented during inspection of Djelfa
ArtifactSketch from the scrapbook of Donald Coster presented to him during his inspection of the internment camp in Djelfa. The page is entitled, "Gulliver's travels to Djelfa." Djelfa, Algeria, ca. 1942.
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Small hooked rug used in the wagon of a Romani (Gypsy) family
ArtifactThis small patterned hooked rug was used as a shoe mat in the wagon of Rita Prigmore and her family when she was a child in Wurzberg, Germany, after World War II. Rita and her family were members of the Sinti group of Roma (Gypsies). She and her twin sister Rolanda were born in 1943. Rolanda died as a result of medical experiments on twins in the clinic where they were born. Rita was returned to her family in 1944. She and her mother survived the war and moved to the United States, before returning to…
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Songbook made by survivors at the Deggendorf displaced persons camp
ArtifactCarl Atkin was United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) director at the Deggendorf displaced persons camp. He received a songbook created by the survivors in his care. This page shows one of the songs compiled in the book.
