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Men, women, and children dig defense ditches during the German siege of Warsaw. Poland, September 1939.
False identification card which Vladka Meed had used from 1940–42 on the Aryan side of Warsaw, smuggling arms to Jewish fighters and helping Jews escape from the ghetto.
View of the entrance to a marketplace reduced to rubble as a result of a German aerial attack. Warsaw, Poland, September 1939.
Poles walk among the ruins of besieged Warsaw. This photograph documenting war destruction was taken by Julien Bryan (1899-1974), a documentary filmmaker who filmed and photographed the everyday life and culture of individuals and communities in various countries around the globe.
German soldiers parade in Pilsudski Square. Warsaw, Poland, October 4, 1939.
German police execute a group of Poles at the edge of the Uzbornia Grove just outside of Bochnia. Altogether, 51 residents of Bochnia and the vicinity were shot in reprisal for an assault on a German police station by members of the Polish underground organization "Orzel Bialy" (White Eagle) on 16 December 1939. Bochnia, Krakow, Poland, December 18, 1939.
German police and SS personnel wait with a convoy of trucks during a shooting action in the Palmiry forest near Warsaw. These trucks were used to transport prisoners held in the Pawiak and Mokotow prisons. October–December 1939.
German soldiers execute Piotr Sosnowski, a priest from Tuchola. Piasnica Wielka, Poland, 1939.
Portrait of Władysław Bartoszewski, Poland, unknown date. Władysław Bartoszewski (1922–2015) was a co-founder and member of the Council for Aid to Jews, codenamed “Żegota.” Żegota was a clandestine rescue organization of Poles and Jews in German-occupied Poland. Supported by the Polish government-in-exile, Żegota coordinated efforts to save Jews from Nazi persecution and murder. It operated from 1942 to 1945. After World War II broke out in September 1939, Władysław worked as a janitor…
Shlomo Trabska was one of the many Jewish victims who were shot by the SS and Lithuanian collaborators at the Ponary killing site outside of Vilna. This photograph was taken in the late 1930s, when Shlomo was serving in the Polish army.
The execution of Polish civilians by the Selbstschutz (ethnic German self-defense organization) and SS in the forest near Tuchola. Bydgoszcz, October 27, 1939.
An SD officer reads a list of charges against a group of Polish civilians just before their execution in the forest near Szubin. A German soldier can be seen in the left background and a woman is included in the number of those to be shot. According to the Main Crimes Commission, one of the officers involved is SS Major Ernst Tiedemann. Szubin (Bydgoszcz), Poland, October 21, 1939.
Members of the Zoska battalion of the Armia Krajowa stand atop a German tank captured during the 1944 Warsaw uprising. The tank was used by the battalion during its capture of the Gesiowka concentration camp. Warsaw, August 2, 1944.
A member of the Zoska battalion of the Armia Krajowa escorts two of 348 Jews liberated from the Gęsiówka concentration camp during the Warsaw Polish uprising. August 5, 1944.
Following the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, Warsaw suffered heavy air attacks and artillery bombardment. German troops entered the city on September 29, shortly after its surrender. This photograph was taken by Julien Bryan, an American documentary filmmaker who captured the German bombardment and its impact on the Polish citizenry. Warsaw, Poland, ca. 1939.
Members of a Polish family perform daily chores amidst the amidst the charred ruins of their home, destroyed during the German bombing of Warsaw. They have reassembled the remnants of their household furnishings outside. Photographed by Julien Bryan, circa 1939.
Polish children wander through the ruins of Warsaw after a German bombing. Photographed by Julien Bryan in Warsaw, Poland, ca. 1939.
A ten-year-old Polish girl, Kazimiera Mika, mourns the death of her older sister, who was killed in a field in Warsaw, Poland, during a German air raid. Photographed by US documentary filmmaker, Julien Bryan, on September 13, 1939.
Father Wlodarczyk attempts to clean and repair a bombed-out church in the besieged city of Warsaw. Photographed by Julien Bryan, Warsaw, Poland, ca. 1939.
An assembly point (the Umschlagplatz) in the Warsaw ghetto for Jews rounded up for deportation. Warsaw, Poland, 1942–43.
A view of the wall surrounding the ruins of the Warsaw ghetto in German-occupied Poland a few months after the ghetto's destruction. Photograph taken ca. June-October 1943.
Yiddish folk poet and songwriter Mordecai Gebirtig was born in 1877 in Krakow, Poland. He wrote "Shifrele's Portrait" was written in Krakow in December 1939, shortly after the outbreak of World War II. Gebirtig's eldest daughter, Shifre, lived in Lvov, and was separated from her family when the Soviets annexed Lvov. In this brief song, Gebirtig, gazing at his daughter's photograph, imagines himself in conversation with her. She assures him that the war will end soon, and that parent and child will be…
Mordecai Gebirtig, born in 1877 in Krakow, Poland, was a Yiddish folk poet and songwriter. Gebirtig had three daughters, for whom he wrote and performed his poems. The words were set to improvised melodies, and most of his songs resemble entries in a diary. Many of Gebirtig's poems contain themes of eastern European Jewish life in the 1920s and 1930s. The lullaby "Your Kitten is Hungry" dates from the early 1920s. The lyrics, addressed to a hungry child, evoke the themes of hunger and deprivation.
Mordecai Gebirtig, born in 1877 in Krakow, Poland, was a Yiddish folk poet and songwriter. Gebirtig had three daughters, for whom he wrote and performed his poems. The words were set to improvised melodies, and most of his songs resemble entries in a diary. Many of Gebirtig's poems contain themes of eastern European Jewish life in the 1920s and 1930s. The lyrics to "Avreml the Pickpocket" address two social issues, crime and the collapse of family life, arguing that both find their roots in poverty and…
Mordecai Gebirtig, born in 1877 in Krakow, Poland, was a Yiddish folk poet and songwriter. Gebirtig had three daughters, for whom he wrote and performed his poems. The words were set to improvised melodies, and most of his songs resemble entries in a diary. Many of Gebirtig's poems contain themes of eastern European Jewish life in the 1920s and 1930s. The lyrics to "Rejoice, Make Merry, Children" contain a springtime motif that recurred in other Gebirtig works. In the lyrics, an elderly narrator urges…
February 1, 1943. On this date, Selek and Eda Kuenstler wrote to Sophia Zendler and begged her to hide their child.
July 23, 1942. On this date, gassing operations began at the Treblinka killing center.
November 25, 1944. On this date, camp authorities demolished the gas chambers and crematoria at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
December 8, 1941. On this date, killing operations began at the Chelmno killing center.
September 5, 1942. On this date, Germans issued this poster announcing the death penalty for anyone found aiding Jews who fled the Warsaw ghetto.
Diaries 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. Stanislava Roztropowicz kept a diary from 1943-1944...
Janowska was a forced labor camp for Jews in German-occupied Poland. It also served as a transit camp during the mass deportations of Polish Jews to the killing centers in 1942. Jews underwent a selection process in Janowska similar to that used a...
Germany occupied the Polish city of Tarnow in 1939. Deportations from Tarnow began in June 1942, first to the Belzec killing center. Following the June deportations, the Germans forced the surviving Jews in Tarnow, as well as Jews from nearby town...
Stanislava Roztropowicz kept a diary from 1943-1944. In it, she describes her family's decision to hide an abandoned Jewish girl, Sabina Heller (Kagan). Sabina Kagan was an infant when SS mobile killing squads began rounding up Jews in her Polish village of Radziwillow in 1942. Her parents persuaded a local policeman to hide the family. The policeman, however, soon asked the Kagans to leave but agreed to hide baby Sabina. Her parents were captured and killed. Sabina was concealed in a dark basement,…
Stanislava Roztropowicz kept a diary from 1943-1944. In it, she describes her family's decision to hide an abandoned Jewish girl, Sabina Heller (Kagan). Sabina Kagan was an infant when SS mobile killing squads began rounding up Jews in her Polish village of Radziwillow in 1942. Her parents persuaded a local policeman to hide the family. The policeman, however, soon asked the Kagans to leave but agreed to hide baby Sabina. Her parents were captured and killed. Sabina was concealed in a dark basement,…
Stanislava Roztropowicz kept a diary from 1943-1944. In it, she describes her family's decision to hide an abandoned Jewish girl, Sabina Heller (Kagan). Sabina Kagan was an infant when SS mobile killing squads began rounding up Jews in her Polish village of Radziwillow in 1942. Her parents persuaded a local policeman to hide the family. The policeman, however, soon asked the Kagans to leave but agreed to hide baby Sabina. Her parents were captured and killed. Sabina was concealed in a dark basement,…
During World War II, the Germans established ghettos where Jews were forced to live in miserable conditions. In October 1940, a ghetto was established in Warsaw, Poland. Before the war, Warsaw had the largest Jewish community in Europe. At its hei...
The Nazis established killing centers for efficient mass murder. Unlike concentration camps, w...
In December 1939, German authorities required Jews residing in the Generalgouvernement (which included Krakow) to wear white armbands with blue Stars of David for purposes of identification. The armband pictured here was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2001 by Akiva Kohane.
During the 1943 liquidation of the Lvov ghetto, dozens of Jews fled into the city sewers to escape death. Eight-year-old Krystyna Chiger (later Kristine Keren) hid with her family and 16 others beneath the city's streets for 14 months, during which she wore this sweater.
During World War II, people often used false identities and forged identity documents to evade Nazi authorities. False identities were essential for resistance fighters, aid workers, and Jews hoping to pass as non-Jews. Creating high-quality, convincing forgeries required dozens of people to work together clandestinely. It also required sophisticated photography and printing equipment. For Jews passing as non-Jews, acquiring forged documents could mean the difference between life and death. During World…
Upon arrival in the Auschwitz camp, victims were forced to hand over all their belongings. Inmates' belongings were routinely packed and shipped to Germany for distribution to civilians or use by German industry. The Auschwitz camp was liberated in January 1945. This Soviet military footage shows civilians and Soviet soldiers sifting through possessions of people deported to the Auschwitz killing center.
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