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The SS established the Mühldorf camp complex in mid-1944 as a satellite system of Dachau to provide labor for the production of the Messerschmitt 262 jet fighter.
Most prisoners in the early Nazi camp system were political opponents of the regime. The system would grow to include other types of camps, including killing centers.
Polish-Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin introduced the word genocide in 1944 and lobbied tirelessly for its addition as a crime in international law.
The Nazis pursued the imperialist concept of Lebensraum (living space) as they conquered eastern Europe. Read more about the deadly consequences of Nazi imperialism.
Read the Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation's short biography of Gertrude Boyarski.
Read the Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation's short biography of Leah Johnson.
The 63rd Infantry Division participated in major WWII campaigns and is recognized for liberating several of the Kaufering subcamps of Dachau in 1945.
The 69th Infantry Division participated in major WWII campaigns and is recognized for liberating the Leipzig-Thekla subcamp of Buchenwald in 1945.
The 30th Infantry Division participated in major WWII campaigns and is recognized for liberating the Weferlingen subcamp of Buchenwald in 1945.
April 12, 1945. On this date, Canadian forces liberated prisoners at the Westerbork camp in the Netherlands.
When World War II ended in 1945, six million European Jews were dead, killed in the Holocaust. About 1.5 million of the victims were children.
Teenager Simon Jeruchim learned of the Allied invasion of German-occupied France (D-Day) on a shortwave radio. He painted a watercolor depiction of the bombing and burning of a town situated on a river. He titled the piece "Memory of June 6, 1944." Simon Jeruchim was born in Paris in 1929 to Samuel and Sonia (née Szpiro), Jewish émigrés from Poland. In July 1942, Simon’s parents were able to find hiding places for him and his siblings, but they were arrested and deported to Auschwitz before they…
Ludmilla was born to an assimilated Jewish family in Kishinev, Romania. She and her mother, a physician, were living in Poland when the Germans invaded on September 1, 1939. They were taken to Krakow. Ludmilla was forced to live in the Krakow ghetto; her mother was sent to the Warsaw ghetto. Ludmilla worked in a factory at the Plaszow labor camp for a businessman who was a friend of the German industrialist Oskar Schindler. In October 1944, Schindler attempted to save some Jewish workers by relocating them…
Wilek was the son of Jewish parents living in the southeastern Polish town of Lvov. His family owned and operated a winery that had been in family hands since 1870. Wilek's father died of a heart attack in 1929. Wilek entered secondary school in 1939. Soon after he began school, World War II began with the German invasion of Poland. Lvov was in the part of eastern Poland annexed by the Soviet Union. Although the Soviets took over Wilek's home and the family business, Wilek was able to continue his…
John Demjanjuk, initially convicted as “Ivan the Terrible,” was tried for war crimes committed as a collaborator of the Nazi regime during the Holocaust.
Why did the United States go to war? What did Americans know about the “Final Solution”? How did Americans respond to news about the Holocaust? Learn more.
View an animated map of activities of the Einsatzgruppen—often called "mobile killing units"—as they followed the German army into newly seized territories.
The Jewish children of Lodz suffered harsh conditions after the German invasion of Poland. Read excerpts from diaries where they recorded their experiences.
Jews were the primary targets for mass murder by the Nazis and their collaborators. Nazi policies also led to the brutalization and persecution of millions of others.
After Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, Siegfried fled with a friend. They attempted to get papers allowing them to go to France, but were turned over to the Germans. Siegfried was jailed, taken to Berlin, and then transported to the Sachsenhausen camp near Berlin in October 1939. He was among the first Polish Jews imprisoned in Sachsenhausen. Inmates were mistreated and made to carry out forced labor. After two years, Siegfried was deported to the Gross-Rosen concentration camp, where he was…
Both of Charlene's parents were local Jewish community leaders, and the family was active in community life. Charlene's father was a professor of philosophy at the State University of Lvov. World War II began with the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939. Charlene's town was in the part of eastern Poland occupied by the Soviet Union under the German-Soviet Pact of August 1939. Under the Soviet occupation, the family remained in its home and Charlene's father continued to teach. The Germans…
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…
Wilek was the son of Jewish parents living in the southeastern Polish town of Lvov. His family owned and operated a winery that had been in family hands since 1870. Wilek's father died of a heart attack in 1929. Wilek entered secondary school in 1939. Soon after he began school, World War II began with the German invasion of Poland. Lvov was in the part of eastern Poland annexed by the Soviet Union. Although the Soviets took over Wilek's home and the family business, Wilek was able to continue his…
The Germans captured Chaim, a soldier in the Polish army, as they invaded Poland in 1939. They first sent Chaim to Germany for forced labor, but as a Jewish prisoner of war, he was returned to Poland. Ultimately, Chaim was deported to the Sobibor camp, where the rest of his family died. In the 1943 Sobibor uprising, Chaim killed a guard. He escaped with his girlfriend, Selma, whom he later married. A farmer hid them until liberation in June 1944. In this clip, Chaim refers to [Gustav] Wagner, Sobibor's…
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