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Young people's diaries bear witness to some of the most heartbreaking experiences of the Holocaust. Learn about the diary and experiences of Lolek Lubinski
Moses Beckelman was an American social worker who joined the JDC in 1939. Learn more about his efforts to help refugees fleeing Nazism during the war.
The charges against German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, negotiator of the German-Soviet Pact, during the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg.
Brief overview of the charges against Baldur von Schirach, Hitler Youth leader and Nazi leader in Vienna, during the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg.
Brief overview of the charges against Arthur Seyss-Inquart, Reich Commissioner for the occupied Netherlands, during the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg.
A group of children assembled for deportation to Chelmno. During the roundup known as the "Gehsperre" Aktion, the elderly, infirm, and children were rounded up for deportation. Lodz, Poland, September 5-12, 1942.
Execution of Polish prisoners of war near Ciepielow in September 1939. Some of the 300 Polish POWs who were executed here by firing squad are visible. In the background is a Wehrmacht soldier who participated. Ciepielow, Radom, Poland, September 1939.
Before World War II, Warsaw was a major center of Jewish life and culture in Poland. Browse articles describing the German invasion, the Warsaw ghetto, deportations, and resistance.
Identification picture of a prisoner, accused of homosexuality, who arrived at the Auschwitz camp on May 28, 1941. Auschwitz, Poland.
Exterior view of the Jewish orphanage run by Janusz Korczak. Established in 1912, the orphanage was located at 92 Krochmalna Street in Warsaw, Poland. Photo taken circa 1935.
Members of the German Order Police publicly humiliate a group of Jews by forcing them to perform exercises, 1939–1940. Sosnowiec, in German-occupied Poland.
A building burns during the suppression of the Warsaw ghetto uprising. The photograph was taken through the window of a building adjacent to the ghetto. Warsaw, Poland, May 1943.
Brief overview of the charges against Hans Frank, Nazi governor general of occupied Poland, during the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg.
Learn about the history of discrimination against Roma in Europe and how the Nazi regime committed genocide against European Roma during WWII.
Felix was born to an assimilated Jewish family in Lublin, Poland. His father was a locksmith and his mother was a singer. Following the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, Felix fled east to Rovno and then to Soviet-occupied Lvov, where he was accepted at a medical school. After the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Felix was taken to a labor camp. He escaped and returned to Lublin, and found that his family had been forced into the ghetto established there. After the…
Leah grew up in Praga, a suburb of Warsaw, Poland. She was active in the Ha-Shomer ha-Tsa'ir Zionist youth movement. Germany invaded Poland in September 1939. Jews were forced to live in the Warsaw ghetto, which the Germans sealed off in November 1940. In the ghetto, Leah lived with a group of Ha-Shomer ha-Tsa'ir members. In September 1941, she and other members of the youth group escaped from the ghetto to a Ha-Shomer ha-Tsa'ir farm in Zarki, near Czestochowa, Poland. In May 1942, Leah became a courier…
Leah grew up in Praga, a suburb of Warsaw, Poland. She was active in the Ha-Shomer ha-Tsa'ir Zionist youth movement. Germany invaded Poland in September 1939. Jews were forced to live in the Warsaw ghetto, which the Germans sealed off in November 1940. In the ghetto, Leah lived with a group of Ha-Shomer ha-Tsa'ir members. In September 1941, she and other members of the youth group escaped from the ghetto to a Ha-Shomer ha-Tsa'ir farm in Zarki, near Czestochowa, Poland. In May 1942, Leah became a courier…
Listing of the 24 leading Nazi officials indicted at the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. Learn about the defendants and the charges against them.
After WWII and the fall of the Nazi regime, Holocaust survivors faced the daunting task of rebuilding their lives. Listen to Blanka Rothschild's story.
Browse a timeline listing some key events in the evolution of Holocaust denial and the distortion of the facts of the Holocaust.
Leah grew up in Praga, a suburb of Warsaw, Poland. She was active in the Ha-Shomer ha-Tsa'ir Zionist youth movement. Germany invaded Poland in September 1939. Jews were forced to live in the Warsaw ghetto, which the Germans sealed off in November 1940. In the ghetto, Leah lived with a group of Ha-Shomer ha-Tsa'ir members. In September 1941, she and other members of the youth group escaped from the ghetto to a Ha-Shomer ha-Tsa'ir farm in Zarki, near Czestochowa, Poland. In May 1942, Leah became a courier…
Walter was the oldest of eight children born to Polish-Catholic immigrant parents in a town near Boston, Massachusetts. The family moved back to Poland when Walter was a child, and lived on a family farm near Ostroleka in northern Poland that Walter's mother had inherited. Because his father's American nickname was "Stetson," Walter was mistakenly registered as "Charles Stetson" on his American birth certificate. 1933-39: After Walter completed secondary school, his father sent him to the University of…
Urszula was one of four children born to Franciszek and Jadwiga Kaczmarek, who lived in the industrial city of Poznan in western Poland. The family lived at 11 Smolnej Street. Like their parents, the Kaczmarek children were baptized in the Roman Catholic faith. 1933-39: As one of the older children in the family, Urszula helped her mother with the housework. She was 10 years old when the Germans invaded Poland on Friday, September 1, 1939. German planes bombed Poznan that same day, and German troops…
Paula was raised in a religious Jewish family in Kielce, a city in the southeast of Poland. Her family lived in a modern two-story apartment complex. Paula's father owned the only trucking company in the district. Her older brother, Herman, attended religious school, while Paula attended public kindergarten in the morning and religious school in the afternoon. 1933-39: Paula's school uniform was a navy blazer with a white blouse and pleated skirt. At age 9, she did the "Krakowiak" dance at school. Boys…
Pinchas was born into a large family living in the town of Miechow in south central Poland. His father was a machinist and locksmith. Pinchas spent long days studying, either learning Hebrew in the Jewish school or taking general subjects at the public school. He belonged to the Zionist youth organization, Ha Shomer ha-Tsa'ir, and played left wing for a Jewish soccer team. 1933-39: At 13 Pinchas finished school and started work as an apprentice machinist and blacksmith in a building contractor's shop.…
Wilek was the son of Jewish parents living in Lvov, a large city in southeastern Poland. His family owned and operated a honeywine winery. Although they lived amongst Poles and Ukrainians, Wilek's family spoke Hebrew, German and Polish at home and were among Lvov's Jewish intelligentsia. When Wilek was 4, his father died of a heart attack. 1933-39: Jews were often discriminated against in Poland. They found it hard to gain access to schools and jobs. In 1939 Wilek managed to pass the entrance exam and…
Irena was the second of four children born to religious Roman Catholic parents in Poland's capital of Warsaw. Irena's father owned a successful textile business. When Irena was 10, her family moved to a comfortable apartment near the Royal Castle and the Vistula River. In 1930 Irena entered a private grade school. 1933-39: At 14 Irena began secondary school. She was a good student and wanted to be a doctor. On September 1, 1939, the day she was supposed to begin the new school year, the Germans attacked…
Miriam and her family fled their home when the Germans invaded Poland in 1939. They were interned by Soviet forces and deported to Siberia. Near the city of Tomsk, Miriam cut trees to earn food rations. When the Soviet Union went to war with Germany in June 1941, the Soviets released Miriam and her family. They sold their Red Cross rations for train fare and intended to return to Poland, but most of the family settled in Kazakhstan during the rest of the war. There, her father taught Hebrew to Jewish…
Thomas's family moved to Zilina in 1938. As the Slovak Hlinka Guard increased its harassment of Jews, the family decided to leave. Thomas and his family ultimately entered Poland, but the German invasion in September 1939 prevented them from leaving for Great Britain. The family ended up in Kielce, where a ghetto was established in April 1941. When the Kielce ghetto was liquidated in August 1942, Thomas and his family avoided the deportations to Treblinka that occurred in the same month. They were sent…
Sally Pitluk was born to Jewish parents in Płońsk, Poland in 1922. A few days after the German invasion of Poland in 1939, Płońsk was occupied. Sally and her family lived in a ghetto from 1940-1942. In October of 1942, Sally was transported to Auschwitz, where she was tattooed and moved into the subcamp Budy for forced labor. She stayed in the Auschwitz camp complex until the beginning of 1945 when she and other prisoners were death marched to several different camps. She was liberated in 1945 and…
Learn more about the SS and the organization’s involvement in perpetrating the Holocaust.
Under the protection of the Bielski partisan group, founded by brothers Tuvia, Asael, and Zus, over 1,200 Jews survived after fleeing into forests in western Belarus.
Children were especially vulnerable to Nazi persecution. Learn more about the fates of Jewish and non-Jewish children.
Under the Nazis, Jewish and other “non-Aryan” women were often subjected to brutal persecution. Learn more about the plight of women during the Holocaust.
After 1940, Polish refugees were pressured to leave Lithuania. Learn more about the diplomats that assisted them and their journey to Japan.
By September 1939, over half of German Jews had emigrated. WWII would accelerate the persecution, deportation, and later, mass murder, of the remainder of Germany's Jews.
In July 1936, the SS opened the Sachsenhausen concentration camp as the principal concentration camp for the Berlin area.
World War II lasted from 1939 to 1945, when the Allies defeated the Axis powers. Learn about key invasions and events during WWII, also known as the Second World War.
While living under an assumed identity after escaping from the Lvov ghetto, Selma Schwarzwald received a toy bear that she kept with her for many years. Read about Refugee the bear.
View an animated map showing key events of the Holocaust, the persecution and murder of 6 million Jews by the Nazi regime and its allies and collaborators.
Nazi officials implemented the Jewish badge as a key element in their plan to persecute and eventually destroy the Jewish population of Europe. Learn more
Each of Germany’s six European Axis allies participated in the “Final Solution” by murdering Jews or by transferring them to German custody. Learn more.
Learn about the provisions and impact of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, including the "War Guilt Clause" which held Germany responsible for starting World War I.
When Wolf was a young boy, his family moved to France to escape Poland's economic instability and growing antisemitism. Soon after they settled in Paris, his father found work in construction, and Wolf started elementary school. 1933-39: Paris was home to Wolf, but he loved to listen to his parents reminisce about autumns in Krasnik and journeys to Lublin. Hitler invaded Poland in 1939. The Wajsbrots learned of the death camps and mass deportations of Jews. Wolf's parents no longer spoke of the past. Wolf…
Leah and her four brothers were raised in a religious Jewish family in the city of Lvov. After obtaining her high school diploma, Leah attended university for one year. In 1931 she married Joseph Rapaport, and the couple settled in Warsaw. 1933-39: The Rapaports lived in the suburbs, and Joseph worked as a banker. Their daughter Zofia was born in May 1933. Each year at the Jewish holiday of Passover, they returned to Lvov to visit Leah's parents. Two days after Joseph was mobilized for military duty in…
Alice was the third of six children born to Jewish parents in the small Moravian town of Hodonin, where her father ran a dry goods and clothing store. The family spoke both Czech and German at home, and Alice attended a German-language secondary school. After graduating, she married her teenage sweetheart, Otto Seelenfried, who was a chemical engineer. 1933-39: Alice and Otto moved to the town of Jihlava. In 1934 Otto died from a ruptured appendix, and Alice returned to live with her parents in Hodonin.…
Blanka was an only child in a close-knit family in Lodz, Poland. Her father died in 1937. After the German invasion of Poland, Blanka and her mother remained in Lodz with Blanka's grandmother, who was unable to travel. Along with other relatives, they were forced into the Lodz ghetto in 1940. She and her mother were deported to the Ravensbrueck camp in Germany in 1944. From Ravensbrueck, Blanka and her mother were sent to a subcamp of Sachsenhausen. Blanka was forced to work in an airplane factory…
Photograph of Blanka Rothschild taken in 2004. Blanka was an only child in a close-knit family in Lodz, Poland. Her father died in 1937. After the German invasion of Poland, Blanka and her mother remained in Lodz with Blanka's grandmother, who was unable to travel. Along with other relatives, they were forced into the Lodz ghetto in 1940. She and her mother were deported to the Ravensbrueck camp in Germany in 1944. From Ravensbrueck, Blanka and her mother were sent to a subcamp of Sachsenhausen. Blanka…
Children's diaries bear witness to some of the most heartbreaking experiences of the Holocaust. Learn about the diary and experiences of Chaim Kozienicki.
Children's diaries bear witness to some of the most heartbreaking events of the Holocaust. Learn about the diary and experiences of Sara Rachela Plagier.
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